ee aH pase Ne ¥ x a BS Saeed a EERE Re NH, 4 From the Library of Urofessor Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield Benueathed by him to the Library of Princeton Chenlogical Seminary cy *. ~ : 8 we = Diy PP Netete ls Pay ay 5 ’ ha THE APOLOGETIC SERIES, BY Rev. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D. ——»—___ Tree independent works, they combine in representation of the view that the proof of Christianity ts constituted by the whole historical appearance of this religion among mankind. The central substance of representation is in The Apology of the Christian Religion historically regarded, which in effect is a commentary on the external evidence :—(1) Indirect external evidence, furnished by the success of this religion, to the effect of a new moral creation of mankind, as appearing in the second century ; and (2) Direct external evidence, constituted by miracle in works and words of Christ and His apostles, and of Moses and the prophets. The two companion works are in completion of the representation, respect- ively by way of logical foundation and of corroborative illustration, to that central substance in The Apology, ete. 1. Loyical foundation.—The present work, The Revelation and the Record, is occupied—(1) under the head of Revelation, with supernaturalism, as involved in the system of things (e.g. free-will, and the fact of religion), as implied in the internal evidence of Christianity and the Bible, and as operative in the inspiration of Scripture ; (2) under the head of Record, with proof of the New Testament Canon—the New Testament Scriptures generally, the Gospels in especial, Mark in particular. 2. Corroborative illustration, from the manner in which this matter, of proof of religion, addressing itself to all men, has been dealt with by Christ and His apostles, and by their followers in post-apostolic times, primitive and modern. This is exhibited in the forthcoming work, Studies in the History of Christian Apologetics, of which the contents are as follows :— Book I. Apologetics in New Testament history.—Chap. 1st. In the ministry of Christ.—l. His introduction to apology; 2. His apologetic practice —(1) appeal to prophecy, (2) to miracle; 3. His personal testimony. Chap. 2nd. In the apostolic ministry— 1, General aspect, with a reference to Christ’s resurrection; 2. Definite belief in miracle in the middle-apostolic age ; 3. Apologetics in Pauline practice and Petrine prescription. Boox II. Apologetics in its two post-apostolic periods.—Chap. Ist. Primitive period of apologetics.—1. The apologetic situation ; 2. The apologists and their witnessing Church; 3. Retrospect of the period. Chap. 2nd. Modern period of apologetics—1. Bearing on early-Reformation and preceding “ages of faith”; 2. Movement within the new apologetic period ; 3. The existing apologetic situa- tion—the New Testament; 4. (Supplementary) Latest phase—the Old Testament question. WORKS BY REV. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D., OAMARU. - 424 ee In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., THE APOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; ‘bistorically regarded witb reference to Supernatural Revelation and Redemption. Epinpuren: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. ‘There is indeed, throughout the entire volume, evidence of his copious learning and abounding vigour.’—Scotsman. ‘A powerful and original statement of the external evidence. —Prof. CanpiisH, D.D., in The Modern Church. ‘Dr. Macgregor is truly great, both in the conception of his subject and his skill in working it out, and his book does indeed reach the magnificent claim which its title makes for it. Fresh and original it cannot help being. It is also sustained and powerful, an apology of the noblest kind, which never apologises, but courageously drives the enemy into that position.’— Expository Times. ‘With reference to the author’s description of his work as ‘‘a lay- man’s book,” this it is in the best sense, and only the best sense.’—New York Evangelist. In Two Volumes, crown 8vo, price 28. each, THE VB 0:0 Ke OE rex0 UES: With Jntroduction, Commentary, Special Totes, Plans, etc. EpinsureH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GrorcE STREET. ‘Remarkably good and complete.’—Church Bells. ‘This is an excellent manual.’— Literary Churchman. ‘A marvel of compact thought and criticism. ... This really great work on Exodus. ... Every sentence is weighty, striking, and suggestive. The Introduction is up to date, the finest and fullest essay on the Second Book of Moses.’— Brighouse Gazette. ‘It (the Introduction) is one of the best digests of modern thought and research on the Exodus that we have seen. The notes which follow on the text are full and suggestive.’—London Quarterly Review. ‘The general introduction will be found specially useful. ... The notes are excellent.—Literary World. ‘ The intro- ductions are brilliant samples of severe condensation, along with winsome vivacity of style. The exposition is throughout eminently sound and searching, while the exercises prescribed to students are drawn up with the skill of an expert.’—Christian Leader. In crown 8vo, price 1s. 6d., THE, EPISTLE : TO. THE SG ALAWAR oe With Jntroduction and Motes, EpinpurcH: T. & T. CLARK, 388 Grorcr STREET. ‘As much solid learning and suggestive thought as is rarely found in books three or four times its size. His introduction admirably discusses such questions as the author- ship, date, and contents of the Epistle, etc. His notes are the outgrowth of a keen and searching analysis, a depth of spiritual intuition, and fine expository powers which invest them with the highest worth. —Baptist Magazine. ‘Sound, fresh, vigorous, readable, and learned, it opens up the Epistle in a way which makes its meaning plain to the commonest capacity. —Free Church of Scotland Record. ‘If the rest of the books (Handbook Series here begun) should show an equal condensation of thought, the result will be beyond all praise.’-—Sword and Trowel. In crown 8vo, paper covers, 6d. ; cloth, 1s., CHRIST LAN sDi0 CT Releneee Texrt=Book for Wouth. EpinpurcH: ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 Princzs Street. ‘ We have pleasure in calling the attention of ministers and teachers of Bible classes to the admirable text-book of Christian Doctrine recently published by Mr. Elliot. In the comprehensiveness of its plan, the precision of its statements, and the fulness and appositeness of its scriptural proofs, it seems to us to be far superior to any work of the kind with which we are acquainted.—(Signed) Ros. S. CANDLISH, D.D., Edinburgh ; JOHN Rosson, D.D., Glasgow; WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, D.D., New College, Edinburgh; JAMES Brae, D.D., Edinburgh: AnpREw T v i : {aera gh; HOMSON, D.D., Edinburgh; JuLius Woop, WITH THE PUBLISHERS’ COMPLIMENTS, THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK! CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. TORONTO: THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY. REVELATION AND THE RECORD ESSAYS ON MATTERS OF PREVIOUS QUESTION IN THE PROOF OF CHRISTIANITY. BY, v Rev. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D., COLUMBA CHURCH, OAMARU ; HANDBOOKS ON EXODUS AND GALATIANS, EDINBURGH: fT. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1893. ols Bist si rcud) ar 4~ 3 ht nS r Lvs oe tf. ott | i se 4 a4 a ; nF 4 ok gat i Maw ‘ uli 1 ion te anon ‘le Moyo ~ Udi he: ESSE SOLON wolves it Suga rr yond 1] a Bik ¥ Bit) dor? Peres care wrens TT 0 etre ‘ acd ee a ‘ee! id foy okies Stra ae ti Fallot oiky Bc a 7 ft ieee pe swt Viaae Bagts oii act 2 ato a Phliy” to” Aya Bees alg PREFACE. eae THE mountains round about Jerusalem (Ps. cxxv. 2) were, in connection with all the land of Canaan, for the holy city a comprehensive system of defence. At the same time they furnished commanding points of view, from which an Israelite (Ps. xlviii, 12, 13)—+telling Zion’s towers, and marking well her bulwarks and her palaces—micht attain to comprehension of that inner defensive system, of which the holy city herself was a shining central strength. Of Christian apology the appropriate materials are the external evidences; because (1 Pet. iii. 15) these are producible, as in open court of the world’s judgment, addressing themselves to the reason of all men who are simply sane. But they are not external merely, as if extrinsic to the religion, They are vital realities of the religion in the substance of it—more than the towers, bulwarks, palaces were integrating parts of the fenced city of the king; so that, while apart from them the religion is not rightly apprehended in its royal strength of beauty, on the other hand, apart from the substance of the religion the external evidences are only empty forms of defensive logic—the shadow-defenders of a kingless city of the dead. Hence, they may to our apprehension receive a life and power even as defences through appearing in their true light of connection, when looked at from such points of view as are sought in the following Essays. The supernatural in this religion is—while visible from afar as on Zion’s battlemented walls—another name for that divinity, in respect of which the primary evidence of true religion is true religion itself, shown to be divinely true by vii Vill PREFACE. being truly divine, as the sun is shown to be the sun by shining. Regarding the internal evidence, the question in particular to be considered by us is as to the reasonableness of the view that there is an inward leht of the soul for apprehension of the self-evidence of divinity shining in religion as outwardly revealed. The question of inspiration has reference to a specific and extraordinary mode of the self- evidence of divinity, namely, in and through verbal, oral or written, utterance of man. In the question of the New Testament Canon the point is, as to ground of reasonable assurance that we possess those primeval records which were intended for perpetuation of that. original testimony on which Christendom was founded. Our Essays thus will constitute a connected series, though without a laboured exhibition of connection, — connected as might be the series of views received by an Israelite in “ walking about Zion, and going round about her.” Richard Baxter, who sometimes found himself clouded in his view as if unable to believe anything, would thereupon set himself anew to thorough study of the question of religion from its foundations. That “ good soldier” of Christ (2 Tim. ii. 3) was not the man to throw himself upon a lazy pietism of prayers without pains. Though mastery of the previous questions is not necessary for the being of a Christian life of faith, it may be greatly conducive to the well-being of that life in fruitful fulness. It is true that the truth is its own evidence to the true-hearted, even the simplest (Luke vii. 15); and that the commonly received “evidences” can by ordinarily intelligent men be seen to be conclusive; as one who in a clear light sees the city and its fortifications may need no further assurance of her defensive strength in glorious beauty so “compact together.” But that is not the whole truth in the present relation. In this relation it is 1 es . . e Cp. what Leibnitz has—Nouveauz Essais—about “lazy reason”—la ralson paresseuse—in philosophy. PREFACE. 1X true also, that a man’s view of that strength may be disturbed or darkened by clouds arising in connection with the matters of previous question, And, on the other hand, clear and. distinct ideas in connection with those matters—where often intelligent Christians are ignorant, or under confused misap- prehension—are fitted to enlarge men’s views and strengthen their convictions relatively to the whole subject of the religion as well as its evidences, while serving toward construction of a more comprehensive system of defence. The endeavour in the Essays will be, beginning where there is clear light, and always taking one step forward at a time, to adhere to the solidly historical method. of proceeding only on the ground of ascertained fact to obvious inference from the facts. They may thus be helpful to some of those who now are sincerely seeking truth in the highest of all interests, If any one seeker be thus helped across the stream through being shown a ford, then two men will have cause for endless thankfulness, The writer is under manifold obligations to predecessors, of which he makes no particular acknowledgment at the places; and here he can only make the general acknowledg- ment implied in saying that he pretends to no originality beyond what is involved in a man’s looking at things with his own eyes and speaking of them in his own words, mitee =i A Tied 7 rea rite oe 7 ” Ay b rinks an. PRE), re, We ¢ : i ) POA ve. bqireeiat tnt ovia ak, a bie ' beat! — fe “eo la ah rat il man: ( M oki Burs we - : ee pidade wit ht Pia Ee et me) 7 a pat nih sgjid OE dy ie TOPS a" Sree oR: sak SEC. . Christian evasions of the supernatural, CONTENTS. ESSAY I. THE SUPERNATURAL. - “‘Oppositions of science falsely so called” (with APPENDIX on Evolution), 3. Naturalism in recent sample—‘‘ Positivism,” 4, ‘* Tested by results,” ESSAY II, THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE, 1, Introduction to the subject, 2. The Christian belief in God, m CO b FF . “*The light of nature” (Westminster Gonfaain ie Faith, i. 1. «ay, ESSAY III. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. . As to the nature of the inspiration, . Bearing of the doctrine on human authorship of Scripture, . Bearing of the fact on faith and the fear of God, . APPENDIX on ‘‘interpretation” at 2 Pet. i. 20, ESSAY IV. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE, 1. The New Testament Scriptures generally. 1. As to direct proof of the Canon, 2. The alternative—forgery of the main Sade of the § Ser iene . APPENDIX regarding the four ‘‘unquestionable ” Epistles of Paul, xi 121 140 157 Xl CONTENTS. ESSAY V. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 2. The Gospels in particular. PAGE SEC, 1. Scriptural setting of the Gospel history, . : ; : 169 2. The Gospels collectively (Hvangelium), . : ; ‘ 175 3. The individual Gospels (Hvangelia), ; : ; : 191 ESSAY VI. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 3. Sample case of Mark, and résumé. 1. Conspectus of New Testament literature, . : ; A 202 2. The particular case, : read ere Mes : 209 3. Inward character of the Gospels, . ; - ; : 205 APPENDIX: Regarding Evolution, The previous question of Science, . : ; ; : ‘ ; : 231 INDEX, ; . : ; : ; : : 263 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. ESSAY I. THE SUPERNATURAL. biel, on the view of mere naturalism, Renan finds to be false, as for the same reason Strauss found the gospel history to be fabulous—does not exclude nature from the system of things, nor imply that there is not an ordinarily fixed course of nature. On the contrary, its miracles presuppose an ordinarily fixed course; since the essence of miracle (“wonder”) is extraordinariness, and nothing can be extraordinary unless there be an ordinary. So, more generally, the supernatural, all-pervasive in this religion as the flame was in the burning Bush, does not exclude the substantive reality of nature with its laws, It really assumes and needs that reality. For if there be not a substantive reality of natural, swpernatural is meaningless, For the purpose of the present inquiry it is important to note the fact, that the “theory”? proceeded on by Renan, Strauss, and others, in their contending for mere naturalism relatively to Christianity and the Bible, necessarily ex- cludes everything but physical nature and its laws—that. is, excludes all rational agency, all free personality, all ground of morality, from the system of real things. Christianity, on 1 In this Essay we shall employ the expression “naturalism,” or “ mere naturalism,” as representing the view that nature 7s all; so that, for instance, criticism of religion and its documents has to proceed on the assumption of Renan, that “there is no supernatural,” or that of Strauss, that “miracles are impossible.” * Greek for view, I 2 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. the contrary, sees rational free agency, moral personality, all- pervasive in the system of things: first, on the part of God, supreme in creation and in providence, “ filling all in all,” and “ working all in all”; and also on the part of man, and of others like him, in respect of spirituality, freedom, moral personality,—the image of that Maker. According to this reli- gion, there is a natwre, both in the Supreme Being and in His rational creatures, which is relatively supernatural, in the sense of being essentially higher in kind than mere physical nature. And, correspondingly, there is, both in God and in those creatures, a necessity of nature to proceed in a fixed course ; such that, e.g. God has to be just and true in all His ways, and man cannot but believe that two and two make four, and that every event must have an efficient cause. Nor is Chris- tianity as a religion alone in this: the reality of a rational nature, with personal free agency, is assumed—and not only assumed and proceeded on, but made fundamental—in all the “noble” philosophies, even of heathenism. Whether it is not abstractly conceivable, an ideal possi- bility, that—as in the imaginary case of the fairies—there should be “ethical” apart from moral in a personal agent, or a non-moral free agency, we need not now inquire, Nor need we inquire as to the ideal possibility of an impersonal intelligence, as if in a Babbage’s calculating machine endowed with life. For such things are not in our present question. The naturalism at present in question—that which is proceeded on in Renan’s criticism* of Christianity and in Strauss’s criticism of the gospel history — 7s equally opposed to all conceivable rationality of nature, freedom of. agency, whether in fairy, or in God, or in man. And in this respect it is essentially opposed to “the noble” philosophies even of heathen mankind. So as to the theorising of Strauss’s master, Baur, with reference to the authorship of our New Testament Scriptures. He found that they are mainly forgeries of the second cen- tury, perpetrated for the purpose of supporting an essentially false view of the rise of Christianity in the ministries of Christ and His apostles, And the criticism by which he sought to establish this theory was based on mere naturalism. 1 Greek for gudgment. THE SUPERNATURAL. 3 He avowedly proceeded in it on the ground of the Hegelian metaphysical doctrine of pantheistic naturalism, that in history there can be no “gap,” or break of continuity, such as—like a miracle—would involve a real beginning; but only one “absolute continuity,” of merely formal evolutionary eventua- tion like the process in deductive reasoning. In other words, the so-called “ historical criticism” was really a metaphysical dogmatism—not a “judgment ”! on the ground of the relevant facts of literary history, but a prejudgment of the facts in obedience to a pantheistic prepossession that excludes all rational nature, all personal free agency, all ground of morality, from the system of things in the universe. That so-called criticism of the Tiibingen school, long antiquated where it first arose, still continues to be heard in wandering echoes, perhaps on the part of men who are not aware that they are ploughing with a dead heifer, trading with the notes of a broken bank, and who might be horrified by discovery of the fact that they are echoing the utterances of an atheistic fatalism, which, a generation ago, masqueraded under forms of literary judgment regarding the Bible and its religion—as Belshazzar employed the vessels of the Lord’s house for the uses of his carnal heathen feasting. An illustration of the manner in which wandering echoes may be borne over the lands, as if by wanton “winds of doctrine,’ was some time ago furnished by Professor Huxley. Claiming to employ “weapons of precision,” in comparison with which the Christian scholarship of such masters as Dr. Wace is like the antiquated barbarism of slings and arrows, he represented certain infidel views of his regard- ing the New Testament and its miracles as being in accordance with the most recent ascertainments of biblical scholarship on the part of its representative leading masters; and in support of this affirmation he cited the names of Reuss, Baur, Volkmar, and Strauss. O sancta simplicitas!—(1) Reuss, through a long life of campaigning, has been steadfastly an opponent of the characteristic views of the Tiibingen schools to which the three others once belonged ; (2) Volkmar, of that school originally, has gone into ultraisms that make him to be of no school; (3) Strauss, the most famous alumnus of Tiibin- 1 English for erzticism. 4 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. gen, abandoned his mythic theory a quarter of a century ago? before finally breaking with Christianity. And, previous to that, (4) Baur, at his death (A.D. 1860), was the last of the Baurites, the once renowned school having by that time come to be virtually dissolved. ‘“ Weapons of precision” may be loosely handled. In the judgment of charity, Professor Huxley knew nothing but the names of those to whom he referred as typical representative leaders of opinion about questions of biblical scholarship at this hour. But his readers of Zhe Contemporary Review might not know how the fact of the matter really stands; and it is not only free lances in a region where they are strangers that can be blind leaders of the blind. 1. Christian Evasions of the Supernatural. In the present writer’s college days, a fellow-student told him a merry tale of the origin of the phrase about doing this or that “on one’s own hook.” At one of the battles of the civil war between English Puritanism and the Stuart despotism, a man was observed to play an unaccountable part, busily firing away, but apparently not for either side. At the close of the fighting, he was called upon to say on what side he had been so active; to which he answered, that he had not been on either side, but had fought on his own hook. One who fights on his own hook must not be astonished if he be taken for an enemy; as it is written, “ He that is not with us scattereth abroad.” And if he be hit by what is really aimed at the open foe, the cause of the wounding may be, not any malice of intention toward him, but his having placed himself between two fires. } The writer has been taken to task for assailing a class of men whom he really had not in his view, where what really he was controverting is an anti-supernaturalist metaphysic of atheism that masquerades as historical criticism of the Bible and the Bible religion. If any sincere believer in the supernaturalism of both be mistakenly suspected of anti-supernaturalism, the cause may be that he has been “ fighting on his own hook.” The observations here and now to be made on Christian evasions of the supernatural are, in the writer’s opinion, 1 New Life of Jesus, published in 1864. THE SUPERNATURAL. 5 required by the fact of there being such evasion as to call for warning from those who perceive its existence, and who have a voice that can make itself heard. If any be unjustly suspected of the shameful thing, it is not faithful warning that is the cause of the injustice. If there be any who think that in fact there is not such evasion, they differ from the present writer about a question of fact. With his view as to the fact of the matter, he cannot refrain from the warning without moral complicity in the shamefulness. And he accepts the view, that if in fact there be not evasion such as to be among the offences woful to the world (Matt. xvi. 7), then the warning on his part must be such an offence. He does not judge persons who (2 Cor. v. 10—21) with him are to be tested by the supremely “higher criticism” ;* but he unshrinkingly condemns the action of men supernaturalistic in their personal belief, who yet, in their dealing with the Scriptures and their contents, plough with the heifer of anti- supernaturalism, and even join in some of its ad captandum eries of worldliness, woful to a world that loves its own. Strauss, while making the gospel history to be a tissue of fables? would have been intruded into a Chair of Christian theology at Zurich—Ulrich Zwineli’s canton !—if the people had not prevented the outrage by political revolution. Baur —in the Tiibingen of Albert Bengel !—held a similar office for a whole generation, in the course of which, avowedly at the bidding of a pantheistic metaphysic, he laboured to show that the scriptural foundation of Christianity is mainly forgery in the interest of falsehood. And in Germany the double-face of Christian office held by men who are openly opposed to the supernaturalism without which Christianity is nothing, has in our time been so common as no longer to be wondered at. Nor is the double-face peculiar to professed theologians. It has been practised by philosophers going, like Belshazzar, out of their way to desecration. For instance, the sacred termin- ology of this religion in its mysteries—TZrinty, Incarnation, Re- demption, Reconciliation—was employed by Hegel for exposition of his pantheism, which is fundamentally antagonistic, not only 1 English for yudgment. 2 The New Testament Greek for “ fable” is mythos. 6 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. to the Christian supernaturalism (witness Baur and Strauss), but to root-principles of all religion and of all morality. But in such cases the “ dissembling” (Gen. ii. 10-14) has been, so to speak, “ without dissimulation”: the masquerade was not really intended to deceive. It is otherwise when there is evasion of the supernatural on the part of men who profess to really believe in Christ or Christianity. In the primitive Church time of deadly persecutions, the formidable “schism” * of Novatianism, threatening to rend the nascent Christendom asunder, was occasioned by the resoluteness of many strong Christians in demanding that no professing Christian, who had shrunk from confessing the faith at the peril of his life, should ever again, even on condi- tion of most painfully humiliating penitential discipline, be owned a Christian brother by the community of the faithful; and on all hands it was held—even on the part of those of milder temper (or less unworldly ?)—that evasion is an offence of the same moral quality with open and express denial (see Luke xii. 5-10; cp. ix. 26). Note on the evasion.—It was practicable through connivance of heathen officials, giving a blank form of certificate (/ibellus) of having denied Christ; the blank to be filled in with the name of one who had not actually made the base denial. The history repeated itself at the time of the Diocletian persecution (see below); especially in the form of giving up (tradere), to be destroyed, pretended Scriptures instead of the real Scriptures. From that arose our word “traitor” (traditor), With a more general meaning than giving up Scripture. The temptations to evasion, morally equivalent to oblique denial, do not now assume the form of “terror” of the magistratical “powers.” They are more likely to assume some form of plausible deduction (2 Tim. ili. 13, iv. 1-4; Rom. xvi. 17, 18; Jer. vi. 13, 14). Evasion may be perpetrated through simple avoidance of the point of supernaturalism in fact or doctrine—as the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side. Or it may be accom- plished through ambiguity of expression, ostensibly affirming the supernaturalism in question, but really not affirming it, per- haps rather suggesting an explanation that explains it away. 1 Greek for split. THE SUPERNATURAL. 7 The following are illustrative samples of evasiveness, which a professedly Christian expositor may conceivably practise, more or less :— SAMPLE EVASIONS OF THE SUPERNATURAL.— The Bible contains the word of God; it records a revelation that came from Him; its inspiration is the highest in all literature (Js it God's word ?).—Atonement means a sacrifice that satisfies God and provides for a sinner’s peace (What about conscience, expiation of the guilt of sin, satisfaction to God’s justice ?)—The person of Christ has in it the highest divinity that can be in man (Is He “truly God” ?).—The Holy Ghost is a spiritual influence proceeding from God (Is He a person, distinct from the Father and from the Son ?).—Regeneration is an awakening to life in God (Is it a new creation from death wn sin ?),—Sin 1s un- fortunate eccentricity ; the common Bible word for it in both Greek and Hebrew means “ missing the mark” (Is it a “ trans- gression of Jaw,” bringing guilt on the sinner, eg. as involving moral turpitude ?).—7rinity represents a real thing in the Supreme Being; also in Platonism and Hegelianism (Does it mean, that “in the unity of Godhead there be three persons” /). —Creation may, considerably, be explained into evolution (Without originative action of God’s will ?).—Providence is God’s reigning (Without governing ; “doing according to His will ?)— Answer to prayer may result from pre-established har- mony of two wills (Does one of them act on the other? Does the enlightened Christian “ask of God” ?)—Fatherhood of God is a universal tenderness (Like that of—heathen alma mater— “kind mother earth” ? What about “the adoption” ?).— Fulfi- ment of predictive prophecy shows coincidence of forecast with event that reminds one of insight giving foresight (What of scientia visionis—foreordination giving insight (Eph. i. 11) ; and about a foresight shown to be miraculous by incalculableness of the event ?).—As to physical miracle, a good deal may be said about “ hypnotism,” “powerful magnetic influence of sympathy,” etc. (By way of explaining the proof of religion through “sign”? And otherwise, might it be desirable to explain what the phrases mean, and in particular, how the thing or things meant by them worked, eg. in turning water into wine, feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes, walking on the sea, giving sight to the born blind, raising the dead, rising from the grave and ascending into heaven ?).—'he Church is an association for performing religious ceremonies, ete. ete. Some such phraseology as the above may on occasion be 8 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. employed without real evasiveness, where the supernatural is not in question, so that there is no call to mark it with dis- tinctness in the matter spoken of; and the utterance regarding the matter, not explicitly pointed, may in effect be ambiguous through pointless generality. In other cases, a similar effect may result from a false delicacy—that shrinks from calling a spade a spade—inclining men to smooth away the rugged- ness of downright supernaturalism; as foolish maternal ten- derness may keep children under a glass case, sealed against all ruggedness of wind and weather in the open air. And in some cases there is a deliberate “economy ” of minimising the supernatural, as, it is said, Jesuit missionaries made converts to Christianity by teaching heathenism. This may be in the hope that the “dissembling,” avoiding offence to unbelievers, may smooth their way to faith (faith 7 what ?). It was not so that the Baptist and Old Testament prophecy “ prepared the way of the Lord.” They did not, for instance (John i. 29-36), keep back the ruggedness of the atonement, with its presupposition (Rom. ii. 19-25, v. 20, 21) of our utter helplessness by nature in the guilt of sin; nor the ruggedness of God’s own revelation of moral law, with its demonstration of utter moral depravity in man (Rom. vii. 9), and implica- tion of a sin-hating holiness in God as “a consuming fire.” ! Evasion of these things may popularise the preacher, by making his “ gospel” to be other than Paul’s (Gal. i. 8). But what is the use? Suppose that Jesuitism gains heathens to baptism by means of doctrine that is conformable to the heathen mind of the flesh, then what does the baptism really signify and seal? Not conversion of heathens to Christ, but “conversion” of Christianity into heathenism. The teaching of false prophets, in a man-pleasing worldliness (Jer. vi. 13, 14) may be popular (2 Tim. iv. 1-4), and perhaps (Rom. xvi. 17, 18) profitable; for the world loves its own, so as to sacrifice its children to Moloch (Matt. vi. 24). But it is an awful calamity to the leaders and the led (Ezek. xxxiii. 6—8). So as to the apologetic defence of Christianity. “Throwing tit-bits to the lion” is poor soldiery. Such was not the defensive manner of “the man after God’s own heart,” whose kingliness was righteousness and his coronation oil was truth * Rey. xv. 3, and ep. John Foster’s criticism of Blair’s Sermons. OE EE THE SUPERNATURAL. 9 (Ps. xlv. 7; cp. Heb.i. 9). He made no concession to the lion, but caught him by the beard and slew him (Acts xx. 26-29; ep. Judg. x. 12,13). That Son of David who is David's Lord practised no evasion, but witnessed “a good confession ” (1 Tim. vi, 13) before Pontius Pilate (John xviii. 37); giving Himself to be truth’s faithful witness (Greek, martyr, Rev. 1. 5, ii. 13) on the cross. So it was in the witness-bearing of the apostles and evangelists, meet precursors of “the noble army of martyrs.” There was no “veiling,” even for such a pur- pose as had lawful place under the Old Testament; but, as in the free spirit of a dispensation of completed light, “ great plainness (= perfect openness) of speech” (2 Cor. iii. 12). Even as matter of policy, or tactic or strategic’ of pro- pagandism, evasiveness of a prudential veiling may be a suicidal mistake-—(1) The dishonourableness (2 Tim. il. 5; ep. 1 Tim. i. 18, vi. 12) of “dissembling ” the essential nature of the system that is advocated will tell against the system in the mind of honourable men? (2) As Wellington, when about to invade France from the Pyrenees, dismissed the Spanish auxiliaries, deeming their absence preferable to their assistance in his honourable warfare, so a blessing is not to be expected from Him who names Himself “ the Truth,” and says, “ Them that honour me I will honour,’ on endeavours tainted by evasion, as on the part of men ashamed of His self-revelation (Matt. viii. 38). (3) In its own nature, what seems a Fabian strategy, of defending by retreat, in this case really is a piece- meal abandonment of the defence. Effectively it leaves no country to be defended, as if Fabius were sinking Roman Italy behind him into the sea. The evasive apologist, evading the supernatural as such, virtually abandons the Christianity in its essence; since in this religion the supernatual is vitally constituent all-pervasively, as the life-blood in man’s veins, the soul in his body, the luminous flame in the Bush that burned unconsumed, 1 The Greek in 1 Tim. i. 18 means literally “campaign, the noble campaign” ; in 1 Tim. vi. 12 it means, as if in battle or single combat, “ wrestle (so in 1 Cor. x. 25) the noble wrestling of the faith.” 2 Cp. the keen censures of a very distinguished anti-supernaturalist (Mr. J. Morley on Compromise) on those of his own way of thinking who dissemble their convictions. 10 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Hence, those who themselves are persistently thorough in clear outspoken witness-bearing for the supernaturalism of Bible religion see in that evasiveness just cause for reclama- tion and remonstrance, which may be censured as arrogance of crimination on their part (1 Sam. xvi. 29), They reason that the Christian cause is betrayed in effect by that evasion of the Christian supernaturalism which is virtual abandonment of Christianity in its distinctive essence; and they feel entitled and bound to reclaim against the evasion on the part of a professing Christian, as being a soldier’s flight that breaks the regiment’s defensive line of battle; or a sentinel’s fatally mis- chievous weakness of ‘‘ liberality,’ that opens a postern-gate of the citadel which guards the nation’s life, so that his weak- ness is a destructive power, as of enemies pouring in like a flood. The question is not about a man’s maintaining that in this or that particular instance of our supposing supernaturalism, no real supernaturalism is implied in the religion itself. The question is about evasion of a supernaturalism that in fact is there. And the question is not as to the evader’s intention, —that is a matter of only personal individual interest,—but as to the effect or tendency of the evasion,—a matter of vital importance to the public interest of God’s kingdom among men. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” and the foundations are in effect destroyed when the supernatural as such—qud supernatural—is aban- doned, were it only in one detail. As to the thought of gaining men over to Christianity through a “ liberality ” of dissembling what is essential in its whole nature—(1) The men whom it is desirable to gain, that is (John iv. 23, 24), those who are in earnest—though their earnestness, like that of Saul of Tarsus, should be in passionate antagonism—are most likely to be, not won by such false wooing, but rather repelled and disgusted by the shamefulness. (2) Zhe thing to which it is desirable to win men (Gal. vi. 14; John iii. 14, xii. 32) is the very thing which (1 Cor. i, 22-24), as the most offensive to men’s worldliness of heart and mind, evasiveness instinctively holds back. And above all (3) the gaining of adversaries (Ps. ii.; Matt. x. 34) is not the one great purpose of defensive ex- ‘THE SUPERNATURAL. i position of this religion. A very important purpose also is (Luke xxii. 32; cp. 1 Pet. v. 10; Acts xx. 28-30) strength- ening the brethren, feeding the flock of God, guarding it against the grievous wolves. And the supremely great pur- pose of all is (1 Tim. ii. 15; 2 Cor. iii. 14-18; Phil. u. 6-11) manifestation of God’s glory of the truth in Christ, as (John viii. 12) the Light which is the Life of men. So “to them that fear Him shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings” (Mal. iv. 2). Evasion, on the other hand, even in a minor detail, may in effect be fatal as that exposure of the unarmed heel, which gave occasion to a hero’s death by an arrow from a weakling’s bow. For now let us consider more closely what is implied in shrinking, as if ashamed (Rom. i. 16; Luke ix. 26) of the supernatural, from open confession of it, were it only in such a detail. Is it not that in the religion the supernatural as such is unreasonable 21 or, more generally, that in religion the supernatural as such is unreasonable,—eg. not in accord- ance with the otherwise known character and ways of God, or nature and state of man, or system of things affecting both ? For it is reasonableness (1 Pet. iii. 15) that is here in question ——in question with reference to presumable truth or divinity. Why shrink from confessing before men what they do not regard as unreasonable, so as to be presumably untrue ? But to concede the. point—owning unreasonableness of the supernatural as such in religion—would be to lay open the way to conclude that this religion, being completely super- naturalistic, must needs be false all through, and apparently is disbelieved in even by its own adherents. ‘The evasion, which implies that concession, is thus to be deprecated even in the smallest detail, as (cp. Gal. ii. 5) involving admission of a principle that, relatively to the whole system, would be a poisoning of the blood. The blood-poisoning may show itself in a languishing con- 1 Theological Rationalism proceeds upon the view, not simply that what- ever is opposed to right reason must needs be untrue, but that everything is untrue that is beyond the reach of our unaided reason, or does not square with the findings of that reason’; and the evasion may at heart be under the power or in the fear of theological rationalism. But in the text we leave that out of view. 12 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. dition (Isa, i. 4-6) of the whole Church’s life of faith; as the blight on the vegetation of a rich beautiful island may be caused by invisible death-chill in the atmosphere proceed- ing from an iceberg that is stranded at or near the shore. And we may sometimes all but see the process of a death- chill entering the Christian people’s heart and mind, through doubts regarding the supernaturalism (Isa. i. 4) which is vitally essential in the distinctive nature of the religion (and its Book), Paul spoke of the mission of the religion among the peoples as a “campaign” (1 Tim. 1. 18), and (1 Tim. vi. 12) asa “wrestling,” or agony of battle or of combat. But, he cried (1 Cor. xiv. 5), “ Who shall prepare himself to the battle, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound?” How will it go with battle and campaign, if the action of even officers leave it doubtful what side they really favour in the warfare ; or, with a campaign-siege of this Jerusalem, if they be found sapping “the fowndations” of the towers and the bulwarks and the battlemented walls? (Matt. xviii. 7). 2. “ Oppositions of Scrence”+ and “vain deceit of Philosophy.” The words “ philosopher,” “ philosophy,” and “science ” (gnosis), in a kindred sense, are respectively found only once in the New Testament record; and that only in connection with Paul’s work among the Gentiles. Professor Huxley (in his Hume) has intimated that he, as a sctentist, cannot believe in miracle, but has to regard the supernaturalism of it as a monstrosity, like the appearance of a centaur in Piccadilly. The master scientific intellect of antiquity, Aristotle, on the contrary, believed in the supreme super- natural God. And the grand master of the modern induc- tive scientism has, as it were, responded— deep answering unto deep”—“I had rather believe all the fables of the Legend, and of the Talmud, and of the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore God never wrought a miracle to convince atheism, because His natural works convince it. It is true that q@ little philosophy inclineth men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds round unto * See Appendix on Evolution, at close of the volume. THE SUPERNATURAL. 13 religion.” ! It may thus appear that even with reference to the domain of science, “weapons of precision” (see above, p. 3) may be loosely handled, as, e.y., when Professor Huxley * staked his scientific reputation on a proof of evolutionism which he had found in an alleged fact of natural history ; and there- upon? it was promptly shown by the evidence of expert scientists who had really studied the subject, that his alleged fact—the basis of a Babel tower—was, with a curious com- pleteness, the opposite of nature’s fact. Paul’s gnosis, “falsely so-called science” (1 Tim. vi. 20) may have been a first appearance of that gnosticism (“ knowing- ness”—illuminationism), which in the following century played so great a part as “heresy” within the Church. He speaks of it as characterised by “vain janglings and (R.V.) opposi- tions” to the faith, which to some will appear as a feature of resemblance to the “do-not-knowism” which Professor Huxley has turned into bad Greek,* inventing the new name of agnosticism. ‘The scepticism or non-belief, relatively to the supernatural, which the new name represents, has no sanction from real science in the relevant sense of this term. Science, “interpretator of nature” (Bacon), seeking for her laws through her facts, has to do with nature only. With supernaturalism it has nothing to do. Whatever lies outside of nature is beyond the domain of science, though it may be in the metaphysical (extranatural) domain of philosophy. And “a little philosophy,’ says Bacon—a smattering of it— “inclineth men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds round unto religion.” Paul’s reference to “philosophy” (Col. ii. 8) was at the time of his referring to “science,” 2c. after the beginning of his Roman imprisonment, A.D. 62; and both references were primarily in warning to Christians in the same part of Western Asia Minor.2 The two words may represent two 1 Bacon’s Essays, Of Atheism—the italics in the quotation are ours. 2 Nature, volume for 1883. 8 Falconer, Transactions of the Victoria Institute—a paper on the palzontological history of the nautilus. 4 The a “privative” in this compound is absurd ; like the un in “wn- light the gas,”"—an expression of a child beginning to speak. 5 See Bishop Lightfoot’s Excursus on “The Churches of Lycus Valley.” 14 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. aspects of one thing, an ambitious “knowingness” or illuminationism, really heathen in its heart (as gnosticism was), though outwardly attaching itself to this religion. Philosophy in the true sense (“love of wisdom,” Socrates) could not be offensive or dangerous to the apprehension of an apostle, who himself (1 Cor. ii. 6) “spoke wisdom ” among qualified hearers, and who (1 Cor. i. 24) saw in Christ crucified “the wisdom of God.” Accordingly, what he warned the Colossians against was, not philosophy as such or generally, but a particular philosophy (lit. “the philosophy ”), which he characterises as a “spoiler” of men (“making spoil of” them, R.V.), accompanied with “ vain deceit,” like the false light of a wrecker’s lure; while in its “ rudiments ” (marg. “elements”) it was worldly to the effect of being unchristian, presumably anti-supernaturalistic. The “ philosophers” (Acts xvii. 15-32) were those of the Stoics and of the Epicureans who “encountered” Paul at Athens, ten years before his warnings to the Anatolian Christians. They were merely naturalistic in their views, as is the Hegelian metaphysic. Their criticism of Paul as a “babbler” proceeded on the same ground of atheistic fatalism that has been used in the more recent criticism of Christianity and the Scriptures by Baur, Strauss, and Renan, as in effect, though not consistently, it was proceeded on by Celsus, apparently the only heathen infidel writer that entered into detailed inquiry into the subject of this religion in the primitive Church time. The Epicurean anti- supernaturalism was materialistic, like that of our present- day atheistic atomism, making physical nature to be all, and man’s death to be mere dissolution into that nature — “dust unto dust,” but not “spirit unto God.” The Stoical philosophy was pantheistic; denying the substantive reality of individual things and persons, and affirming that the only real substance is the whole! universe—a shoreless ocean of characterless being, of which the seeming species of things are only surface-waves, while seeming individuals are but bubbles on the crest of a wave; so that man’s death is the vanishing of a bubble. Then, as now, the two extremes of mere naturalism, the atomistic and the pantheistic, were at * The Greek for “ whole” or “all” is pan. THE SUPERNATURAL. 15 one in antagonism to the doctrine of a personal free agency, whether of God or of man, in real history of events. For the rest, the distinction between atomism and pantheism does not concern us, as it makes no difference relatively to the super- natural, which both alike exclude; and the difference between materialistic and spiritualistic pantheism is merely verbal. In Paul’s day, mere naturalism among the philosophers had reached its utmost extent of empire. Some were Pyr- rhonist or eclectic—-we now might say sceptical, or (in bad Greek) “agnostic.” Others, especially of the Platonising type, endeavoured to hold on to some view of rational free agency, moral personality, at least in man, perhaps also in God. But far the most widely prevailing type of speculation in the schools was, in its two extremes, that fatalistic atheism which “encountered” Paul at Athens. And atheistic natural- ism in speculation was what most fairly represented the then prevailing character of practical thought and life among the “ civilised ” heathen peoples. Thus, as to the Athenian commonalty with altar inscription, “to deity unknown,” it was not at a centaur in Piccadilly, but at the supernaturalism of resurrection in Christ, that “some mocked,” and others were nonplussed, as if dumb- foundered with the “newness” of the “thing,’ while very few indeed believed. In that world-renowned centre of human culture, men could see only incredible absurdity in what the truly civilised world holds as the sun- light of its true life, the foundation-fact in its history, its fundamental article of faith. In writing to the Corinthians five or six years after that, Paul only generalised what he had seen at Athens, where he says (1 Cor. i. 23, 24) that the wisdom of God was “to the Greeks foolishness,” and (ver. 21) “after that the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching (R.V.) to save them that believe.” Finally, let it be noted fully and with care, that what one, objecting to miracle as a scientist, has to maintain, is absolute impossibility of miracle. This is essentially different from the ground of objection that is maintained by Hume (Assay on Miracles), though Professor Huxley (Hwme), intending or pro- 16 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. fessing to appropriate Hume’s argument, apparently is not aware of any difference. Hume speaks, not as a dogmatic scientist, but as a sceptical philosopher. And accordingly, what he maintains is, not an absolute impossibility of miracle, which would be maintained by no genuine “ agnostic” or do- not-knowist, but only a moral impossibility, established, he holds, by men’s experience of non-performance of miracle (the nonsense here is the philosopher’s). Even with reference to that, Hume’s position, which Professor Huxley approves, or, as it were, patronises, is weak in assuming that the amount of testimony necessary for proof of a fact has to be great in proportion to the antecedent improbability of the fact; as if, while at the mouth of two or three witnesses it is established that a child has been born with five toes on each foot, two or three thousand witnesses were requisite for proof of a child’s having six toes on each foot—supposing that this abnormity is found at only one birth in a thousand. The professor, on his own part, speaks as further implying that strength of evidence grows in proportion to augmenting copiousness of testimony, as if a thousand suns could make light that is a thousand times clearer than day—an implica- tion that adds aggravation to the fallacious confusedness of Hume’s assumption, that a clearer light is needed for showing six toes on a foot than is needed for showing five. We have already seen repeatedly (above, pp. 3, 12), in the professor’s case, that “weapons of precision” may be loosely handled. What we now observe further is, on his part, along with mis- handling of Hume’s argument, an apparent misapprehension of its nature. Hume’s position is not that of maintaining what Professor Huxley maintains as a scientist, namely, the absolute impossi- bility of miracle. If he’ had maintained that, then in this relation he, too, would not have been a genuine sceptic (or “ agnostic”), but a dogmatist of uncommon rashness. He was speaking, not as a scientist, on the ground of physical law, but as a philosopher, on the (misapprehended) grownd of human testimony. Correspondingly, what he maintained was not an absolute impossibility of miracle, which is the only relevant (though it be mistaken) deduction from science as appealed to by Professor Huxley, but only a moral impossibility, which, THE SUPERNATURAL. 17 he argued, is constituted in this case by the utter ampro- bability of such an occurrence as a miracle. In fact, the improbability asserted by him on the ground of our experi- ence of non-performance of miracle is not shown by that experience. (A thing is not antecedently improbable because at present not known in our hitherto “experience.”) But though the fact had been as Hume supposed, the moral impossibility maintained by him is an essentially different kind of thing from the absolute impossibility maintained by Professor Huxley in the name of “ science.” Now, a scientist, as such, has no right to speak (or think) of absolute impossibility. The only kind of impossibility he can know about is natural or physical impossibility. And natural impossibility of miracle does not involve absolute impossibility of it, All that it shows is only that miracle is miraculous. Things naturally impossible are, eg., “possible with God” (Matt. xix. 26), who (Eph. i. 11) “worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will.” 3. Naturalism in recent Sample—* Positivism.” “Show me that there is a God, and Ill grab at your Bible,” said a Glasgow infidel artisan (to the late Rev. D. MacColl, of the Wynds Mission, who told the present writer, then his fellow-student). If there be anything really super- natural in the universe, then the “learned unbelief” of such as Renan, Strauss, and Baur, not to say Celsus, is destroyed in is foundation, namely, its principle of criticism.t Hence in our present question as to reasonableness, that is, conform- ableness to the nature of man and the system of things, it is important that mere naturalism should be contemplated as 7 is in itself, apart from confusing distraction of argumentations about Christianity, in order that we may see whether natural- ism is the light of a bush that burns and is not consumed. When Scipio transferred the war to Africa from Italy, then, by destruction of Carthage, Rome was saved. And we now will contemplate mere naturalism by itself apart, as it shows itself at full length, wrought out into a system or “philosophy,” for the guidance of all human life, social as 1 Greek for judgment. 2 18 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. well as individual,—in The Positive Philosophy of M. Auguste Comte. 7 Under that title, the system was expounded by Comte himself in a separate work of six large octavo volumes. Under a similar title, it has been done into English on the basis of his exposition. And it is the basis of a new evangel, recently published in London, under the title The Service of Man, where “service” has a flavour of meaning religious “ service,” as at Jas. i. 27 (in the Greek),! thus reminding us of the fact of Comte’s having (abortively) endeavoured, in his later days, to set up a positivist religion,’ with a special refer- ence to his deceased wife ; as also, of Renan’s famous apostrophe to his deceased sister, and his more recently published prayer to the heavenly “Father,” whose personal existence he did not believe in, and who thus could for him be at the utmost only a mere personification of nature. The failure of experiments like Comte’s may show us that religion without a God is an eagle endeavouring to soar without an atmosphere. At the same time they are a refutation of mere naturalism by show- ing—the eagle nature of our soul—that religion, aspiring toward the supernatural, is indestructibly in man’s nature.” We begin our notes on that “ Positive Philosophy” with the following account of— Comte’s THEORY OF THE History oF Human THoucut.—In that history there are three stages,—the theological, the meta- physical, and the positivist;~—which may be described as respectively palzozoic, secondary, and tertiary or final. Their relation to one another in the progressive history of the race is like that of childhood, youth, and maturity to one another in the growth of an individual. Thus, the appropriate thought of one stage is outgrown when a later stage is reached; so that retrogression into that thought would be unnatural or mon- strous on the part of a community, as if a mature man should lapse into juvenility that is not youthful, or a youth or an adult should sink into the lamentable imbecility of a second child- 1 At Jas. i. 27, the Greek for “religion,” thréskeia, which also occurs at Acts xxvi. 5and Col. ii. 18, natively means (religious) service. At Jas. 1. 27, the Greek for “visit” is what goes to make bishop. So that, if the ‘ un- spotted” be made into a surplice, we shall have an episcopal visitation. On superstition as religion, see pp. 71, 72. 2 See below, pp. 65-78. THE SUPERNATURAL. 19 hood.—(1) At the theological stage, things are ascribed simply to divine agency ; (2) at the metaphysical, they are ascribed to the operation of some occult potency in the nature of things ; (3) in the positivist, finality is attained. Things are now no longer ascribed to any causative efficiency, whether of nature or of will. They are simply observed in the order of their occurrence, with an expectation of recurrence of the observed order, and tabulated or grouped in classes according to similarity of their faces (phenomena)! The digest of observations thus made is science ; and the totality of sciences, with suitable inferences for the government of human life, is the positive philosophy. This “theory”? is on the face of it contrary to main plain facts of the history it professes to expound.—(1) Jn fact, the stages of metaphysics and of science have not exhibited abandonment of theology; witness the scientism of such masters as Aristotle and Bacon,? Newton and Pascal, and the professed Christianity of all the existing scientific peoples, so that Christendom—the domain of Christ—is another name for the domain of science among mankind. (2) Jn fact, the stage of scientific thought among mankind has not been characterised by abandonment of metaphysic in the sense here intended, of ascription of things to natural efficient causation. On the contrary, the search for efficient causes in nature, as “interpreted ” (Bacon) through her facts, has been the main- spring in all successful movement of the physical sciences ; and belief in divine efficient causation has been at the root of all the living religions of mankind (the primary divine causation in history being regarded as “ordinary” provi- dence employing secondary causes according to their respective natures, while in “extraordinary providence,’ or miracle, there still is causative efficiency of God). And (3) In fact, the “ positive” manner of thinking among mankind has not been characterised by manifest finality in respect of lofti- ness of human condition, socially and individually. On the contrary, mere naturalism is historically associated with degradation of that condition ; while, on the other hand, super- naturalism has pervaded the thought of mankind at its highest—in Homer, Pindar, Socrates; in Augustine, Anselm, * Greek for appearances or aspects, 2 Greek for view or vision. 3 See above, pp. 12, 13. 20 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Dante; in French, Calvin; English, Shakespeare ; German, Leibnitz; in Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul the Apostle, John the Divine, Jesus the Son of Man. With a reference to that reasonableness which is our present point of question, we now will concentrate our attention on that view of the origin of human knowledge which lies at the foundation of “the positive philosophy.” It is (teste Mr. J. Morley, Voltaire and Diderot) in effect that sensational view which had been expounded by Locke in his famous Essay on the Human Understanding. Hume, in logically deducing his universal scepticism from the sensationalism, indirectly refuted it, through a process of reductio ad absurdum ; that is to say, on the view expressed by Hume himself, that universal scepticism is a sort of “ philosophical delirium.” The ground of his indirect refutation of sensationalism thus is the presupposition (of “commonsense ”—Reid) that hwman reason as such 1s not illusory. And the same ground, of appeal to the rational constitution of man, was taken in the two great lines of direct refutation of the sensationalism :—first, in the “common- sense ” philosophy of Reid and his Scottish school ; and also, in the transcendental philosophy of Kant (a Scot by descent) and his successors in the recent German movement—a movement characterised by an intellectual greatness in the series of its masters, that has not been equalled by any similar series in the philosophical history of mankind. But, before that, Leibnitz had on the same ground! produced his detailed answer to Locke’s Lssay point for point. Where Locke, turning an old scholastic maxim to the use of his sensationalism, says, Wil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu “nought is in understanding that was not in sensation”), Leibnitz answers, Vist ¢ntellectus ipse (“except understanding itself”). So that here, too, from the outset, the appeal against sensationalism was to the rational constitution of man ;—in that rational constitution, as intellectual, there is a source of knowledge that is distinct from, that is over and above, mere corporeal sensibility as organ of “sensations,” which “ sensa- tions” are to be elaborated and sublimated into “ideas” by an after process of “reflexion.” And here we find a starting- point for more detailed notes on the sensationalism. * Nouveaux Essais sur VEntendement humain. THE SUPERNATURAL. 21 The fact of consciousness (“conscire sibi”)—what we are inwardly aware of—in our knowing things, is what we here appeal to against the sensationalism. Thus— 1. Our knowing things outside of us includes, we are inwardly aware, not only a looking at the faces of the things (phenomena), but a perception of the things themselves (noumena) in. their substantive reality of nature, which may involve a divination of their causative source! Comte’s fellow-countryman Condillac,? for the purpose of illustrating the sensationalism, compared the mind to a statue receiving impressions of things outside of it. What he really illustrated was not the meaning of the sensationalism, but its falsehood. For, to begin with, a statue does not in fact really recelve impressions of things outside of it. But second, supposing for the sake of argument that somehow it does receive impressions of them,—as a mirror images the faces looking into it, ag a trout takes on the colour of the river’s bed, as a photographic plate takes in pictures that can be produced visibly on its face,—still, all that has no resemblance to the knowledge of things that is in our sensitive perceptive mind, nor even to our sensation in the contact of them. Thus (1), our feeling in sensation is not that of a mere sensitive plant, nor that of a mere. animal, but that of a mind, a rational percipient; as truly in our knowing the simplest fragrance, colour, or sound, as in our. esthetic sense of the beautiful, or in our moral sense of the good. (2) Along with that feeling (as in Virgil’s tree that spoke) there is the cognitive action, or act of cognition—perceiving the thing by which the feeling is occasioned (as the tree’s bleeding was occasioned by a man’s wounding). Even here the axe is laid at the tree’s root of positivism, which takes account of sensa- tion alone as a source of our primary knowledge of things. If in our primary knowledge of things there be any such cognitive action as perception of them, then there must needs be “things in heaven and earth that are not dreamed of ” in the “ positive philosophy.” The sensus in the scholastic maxim, Nil in intellectu, etc., does not necessarily refer only to the sensation at present in our question. It may refer to all primary apprehension ot 1 Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind. 2 Traité des Sensations. 22 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. things, all intuition, whether of things external (in perception) or of things internal (in reflexion), The meaning of the maxim thus may be, that all the material for exercise of understanding (discursive reason) has come to us in primary apprehension (intuitive reason), in perception, in reflexion, in spiritual faith. And that primary apprehension, even in its crudest form of external perception, has to include, not only passive feeling of the thing,.but active knowing, cognitive action of perceiving it. Further, the dntellectus apse, “even understanding,” in real life comes into operation from the outset of our coming to know things. As a reality of life there is not, in our con- sciously knowing, any such thing as absolutely “simple apprehension.” “Simple apprehension” is only a technical phrase for convenience of scholastic exposition ; as there may be anatomical pictures, separately, for illustration of the functions of the eye, which can have no real existence except as part of the whole body and its life. All actual apprehension, on our part, in reality of life, has in it some comprehension. Realities are known by us (from reri—“ to judge” regarding the thing?) not as absolutely simple elementary objects in isolation, but as more or less complex and connected objects, involving parts and relations which have to be compre- hended (in a unity of knowledge), if there is to be any apprehending. Man’s knowing, though he should be of “ Epicurus’ herd” (Hor.) is never a mere non-rational devouring of a thing, but always has to be rational, entering into the thing as with a light of rationality, to the effect of seeing its nature, com- prehending its variety as a unity, and perhaps divining the source of it in that nature. If it had not been so, if our only source of primary knowledge had been a merely sensitive apprehension of the faces of things, then the quod prius in sensu would have been fatal to Locke, leaving him defenceless against the scepticism of Hume; yea, “the positive philo- sophy,” that transcendent phenomenon of nineteenth century finality of human progress, would not have been so much as knowable even in the most masterly expositions of it; and its grand master, Comte, would have been only an imposing spectral apparition, to be followed by a succession of secondary THE SUPERNATURAL. 23 masters, unsubstantial as the shadow-line of kings in Banquo’s vision of the future. 2, All real science has in it a knowledge of things, not only on their faces, but in their natures and causes. The substantive reality of nature, with (in that nature) forces whose normal course of operation is called law, is, we saw, presupposed in miracle or work of “ extraordinary ” providence. But now we restrict our attention to man’s knowledge of nature in her ordinary course. Again, in his knowing of nature and her course, we will leave out of account the intellectus ipse, the reasoning faculty, which with its laws is to us an object of knowledge that is elaborated in the science of formal logic, and which has for its fruit, independently of all concrete reality, the abstract science of pure mathematics in which Comte was a passed master. We thus concentrate our attention on the physical sciences, the totality of which is to constitute the material of “ the positive philosophy” for all men’s guidance in all things. That “philosophy ” is (Col. ii. 8) a hollow delusive unreality of nothingness, like one of Banquo’s apparition-kings, if our knowledge of things extend only to their faces, if we do not see into their natures to the effect of coming to know their causes. Thus (1), classification is indispensable for possibility of real science. But it has to be a really scientific classification. And a classification that proceeds on similarity merely of the faces of things is not scientific: it is only a childishness of playing at “silver bells and cockle shells, all glistening in a row.” A man’s face resembles his picture; what then ? Shall we class them as two men? or as two pictures? or what? Evidently, in order to classification that can be of any use in science, we must see in things a similarity of natures; and in particular, similarity in respect of an “ occult potency ” of nature that is common to them, a power whose operation is efficient causation. So (2), as to the expectation of recurrence of an observed order of occurrence ; why do we expect that recurrence? Not merely on account of the occurrence in the past. Our expecta- tion of a sunrise to-morrow we do not imagine as warranted by the mere face of sunrise presenting itself to-day and yesterday. We believe it to be warranted by a heart of 24 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. promise, perceived by us through that face—namely, in the existence, in that nature shining on us, of a power, of causative efficiency in producing past sunrises, whose continuance in operative existence cannot but go on producing future sunrises, unless a greater power bid the sun stand still. So, with reference to the general question, reasons a story-teller, who is rational in fis creation of shining wonders (speciosa miracula—Hor.) :— “ Whenever the hand of my watch points to ten, I hear the neighbouring clock strike; but I should not therefore infer that the hand of my watch tolls the bells of the church clock. Again, when I see a steam-locomotive in motion, I hear it whistle, I see the valves open and shut, and the wheels go round; but I do not conclude that the whistle and the valves make the engine move on. Country people will tell you that at the end of the spring a cold wind is blowing because the oaks are budding; now, though I do not know why the cold wind blows I cannot agree with the peasants in ascribing it to the budding of the oak trees. All I find in these phenomena, and in all others, is.a concurrence of conditions; and I may study the hands of the watch, or the valves of the engine, or the buds of the oak, as long as I live, without discovering the cause of the chimes, of the motion, of the eold wind.” ! The causal judgment thus coming into view is something ‘more than the Leibnitzian See above, p. 13. 5 66 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. will perceive that the being of a physical nature in the universe does not necessarily exclude from the universe of real things the being of a free rational nature, whether in man, or in angel, or in God. And from physical nature itself they may rise and soar to the conclusion of their grand master in scientism, “I had rather believe all the fables of the Legend, and of the Talmud, and of the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. . . . It is true, that a little philosophy,” etc. (Bacon, as above). In that same utterance Bacon says, “ and therefore God never wrought a miracle to convince atheism, because His natural works convince it.” So, too, speaks the Westminster Confession in the opening of its first sentence: “The works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable.” So that here we have an exemplification of reasonableness—con- formableness to the nature of things—on the part of the Bible religion, in that 2 offers no proof of the being of a God, but (Acts xiv. 14, 10, xvii. 22, ete.; Rom. i, 18-21) pro- ceeds upon the fact of God's being and character, and appeals to His natural works as proving the fact. Its own evidential supernaturalism 1s presented in proof, not of the being of a living God, Creator and Ruler of all, but (Acts xvil. 23; cp. Jonah i. 9) of the fact that Israel’s Jebovah, now manifested in Christ crucified and glorified, is that true and only “God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.” But if that be so, then (1 Tim. vi. 20) a so-called “ science,’ that objects to the Christian supernaturalism simply as super- naturalism, must needs be a “ science falsely so called,” contradicting the testimony of the nature which it professes to interpret: since this nature bears witness to the being of a supreme supernatural Creator and Ruler of nature, who “leth all in all,” and “worketh all in all,” so that in Him “aye all live, and move, and have our being.” In other words, if that be so, then (Col. ii, 8) the “little philosophy,” which ‘inclineth men’s minds to atheism,” is the cause, or conse- quence, or alter ego of a “ vain deceit” of worldliness—like an ignis fatuus vapour light from corruption under the surface— all the worse on account of any prestige it may have from tradition of ungodliness in worldly schools, helping it into THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 67 more fatal effectiveness as a false light of a wrecker’s lure, “making a spoil of” those who trust its guidance. Hence we may have cause to be thanktul that, as repre- sented by the latest of great symbols, the strenuous orthodoxy of Reformation evangelism placed the article of the competency of a Natural Theology on the forefront of its Christian creed of supernaturalism. For this it had a special occasion in the Socinian antisupernaturalism of rejecting the evangelical doc- trines of incarnation and of salvation by grace. Evangelism sees a call for intervention of God, extraordinarily, in our need of redemption as being in a ruinous condition of our nature through sin, from which there is restoration through atonement of Christ and new creation by the Spirit. So- cinianism, seeing no such need of supernaturalism, which yet had to be somehow in any system claiming to be Christian, sought to supply the want in itself by making the purpose of the Bible supernaturalism to be simply revelation of God’s being and natural attributes; and in order to show that this is a real desideratum, maintained that for man there is competent no naturally attained knowledge of God, particularly in respect of “six fundamentals” regarding the divine being, eg. the unity of Godhead.’ Thus the evangelical proposition of the competency of a natural theology makes a point against that Socinianism, which, according to a great master of the Christian history of doctrine,” is the real working belief at the heart of unregenerate members of evangelical Churches. (Another master, the late Principal P. Fairbairn, says that the history of religion might be written without mention of So- cinlanism.) At the same time, the proposition gives its due right to the doctrine it states in a system claiming to .be drawn from “the Bible, the Bible alone,” which, according to Chillingworth, is “the religion of Protestants”; for, as we have observed, the Bible supernaturalism of doctrine proceeds on the presupposed competency and fact of a natural theology. 1 About the same time Lord Herbert of Cherbury, solicitous about the truth of his proof—De Veritate—of there being no need of supernatural revelation, prayed for, and (he thought) obtained a supernatural “ sign ” of its truth—a miraculous demonstration of the needlessness of miracle ! (Cp. “The harmony of Protestant Confessions.”) * Principal Cunningham, Historical Theology. 68 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. But before speaking of the “ works of creation and provi- dence” as manifesting God’s being and natural attributes, the Confession assigns the same office to “ the light of nature,’— “The light of nature, and the works,” etc. This, in the first line of the first chapter, is thus, so to speak, the first syllable of the whole confessional testimony regarding true religion. And “the light of nature” here does not mean a light that shines in and through the system of those works, as (¢0 ton episteton epistetotaton) “the most intelligible of intelligibles,” —the meaning which makes them all to be a sentence,—so that to a Bacon or an Aristotle it shall be utterly incredible “that this universal frame should be without a mind.” What the expression means is, distinctly from that light in the general system of the world, a light within the nature of man himself, —_on which we now will concentrate our attention. In this connection, “the light of nature,” as distinct from the general system of creation and providence, is explained by the seventeenth century masters in evangelical theology * as implying, not only that man by nature, even as depraved and spiritually blind, has in him a power of attaining to some knowledge of the divine being and attributes, but even that he has that knowledge in his rational constitution, inseparably in himas the being and rationality of his constitution as man. The opponents of the doctrine so stated, that are named by them, are “The Socinians.” This does not mean that the knowledge is necessarily present to his consciousness, on the surface of his mind. The knowledge of the law of formal logic, and of the law of cause and event” is not present in the consciousness of a newly-born infant. Yet it.is in him: in the very frame of his constitution as rational; so that, as soon, as his mind goes out into rational exercises, there shines in it a knowledge of each of them as of “a law written in his heart.” Yea, though it should never shine in him (idiotcy), or though it should be extinguished in his mind (dementation),—e.g. where a man has no feeling of the beautiful, or where his conscience is “seared as with a hot iron,’—yet the knowledge is 7 hin, indestructibly as his rational nature, and ready to rise into “burning and shining 1 E.g., F. Turrettine, Theologia Elenctica, Locus i. Quest. 3. 2 See above, pp. 24, 25. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 69 light” (as of a Baptist risen from the dead); as in the nature of coal there is a buried and petrified burning and shining, which is being elicited into “manifestation” every day and night before our eyes. This is what is meant by natural theology, or by an “innate idea” of God. If there be any such thing—even a buried and petrified theology—then of course every form and mode of mere naturalism is a denial of what is deepest in the nature that is nearest us,—human nature, the nature that is highest in the system of our world; the sun in the system of that world, the radiantly crowned interpreter and lord of it (cp. Matt. xix. 28), In proof of the doctrine that man by nature has in him such a theology, the systematic divines appeal to experience in his nature, as appearing on the world’s face at the present day, and as recorded in history, “the memory of the race.” It was said of an unprincipled politician that he put inven- tion in the place of experience, discarding memory in favour of inventive imagination. That censure will be merited by a “science” that rejects the scriptural supernaturalism as super- naturalism, if it be shown historically that religion is natural to man, in the sense of being zz his rational constitution, inse- parable from him as the being of that constitution. In proof of its being so, by the way of fact, the divines appealed to what they spoke of as the consent of all nations—in respect of religiousness, that is, the universality of religion among man- kind. And on that point we now for our present purpose will dwell, under the for us convenient description of — THE FACT OF RELIGION, especially as appearing in “the religions” of mankind. We will begin with simply looking at the fact, as it appears in reality of life. At certain seasons (of kelp- burning) in the Hebridian and Orcadian Scottish archipelagos, all round the horizon columns of smoke are seen rising up in the pure air. Such a column accompanies the chief of a military expedition in eastern desert warfare. That which in the day-time sends up the pillar of cloud is in the night seen as a pillar of fire. The banner is both by day and by night visible from afar; so that no follower of the chief need be lost through straying in ignorance of his leader’s place. In Israel’s wilderness warfare, the Leader and Commander 70 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. was Jehovah, “a man of war” (Ex. xv. 3); whose General’s Tent or dwelling (“ Tabernacle”), the Tent of Meeting with His people around that banner, was their sanctuary of religion. And both the cloud and the flame, the symbols of His pre- sence and protecting guidance as Israel’s Redeemer and King, represented the fact of religion in Israel’s reality of life (religio, from religare, “to bind” to one unseen), a drawing toward the unseen supernatural here accessible, the real though invisible presence of deity (Ex. xxxiv. 14, 15). And the fact is not only in Israel’s life. Ever since Noah's landing after the flood (Gen. viii. 20-22) the fact has, roundly speaking, been wherever the Noachide have been: all round the historical horizon, as widely as the dispersion of mankind from Ararat and Babel, the fact of religion is visible in gatherings of peoples around altars, from which columns of cloud and of fire are ascending, as if on the people’s behalf, into the in- visible presence of deity, with offerings of praise and prayer along with sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour. Substan- tially, the fact of religion (Acts xvii. 26) appears coextensive with humanity on earth. The way and manner of the fact are not now in our question. Looking at the Athenian altar inscription (Acts xvil. 23), Pausanias,! a century after Paul’s visit, might perhaps con- clude that the altar fire was extinguished there in the human soul. Paul did not so reason. He included the Athenians (ver. 27) in his description of the dispersed human family, as, all over the world, in consequence of a purpose of God, « feeling after Him,’ to find Him, whom they had lost. The word here for “feeling after” (pselaphao) occurs only four times in the New Testament, always with reference to A soul seeking after God;—but always with a specialty of refer- ence to the manner of the seeking. The word natively means palpation, seeking as if with one’s hands in the dark, blindly groping, like aged Isaac endeavouring to make out by feeling the hands and neck, whether this indeed is the Esau whom he has not eyes to see. Thus—(1) At Heb. xii. 18, “the mountain that might be touched” (“handled”), where the refer- ence is to the Hebrews at Sinai. There the mount of legislation, steeply overhanging them as if with clouded awfulness of Jeho- yah’s presence, could all but be touched with their hands; 1 Description of Greece. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 71 while they were held back from it by the terribleness of the threatenings against profane intrusion on the sacredness of that mystery of godliness. (2 and 3) At Luke xxiv. 39 and 1 John i. 1 (“handle”), where the handling is of a human hand thrust into the divine Redeemer’s wounded side; but the soul’s exer- cise is a darkly seeking disclosed in the finding of, “ My Lord, and my God!” And John the divine looks back on the inci- dent as with an ever fresh amazement at the distance of two generations of time. (4) Last of all (Acts xvii. 15-32), Athens, the radiant centre of the world’s wisdom, is like Ethiopia darkly stretching out her hands to God. There is seen most vividly the pathetic condition of all the Gentile nations relatively to real knowledge of Him, in whom they and we “all live, and move, and have our being.” They are in His omnipotence as an atmosphere, in His self-manifestation as a sunlight. And yet they worship dead things instead of God!* With all their boasted “ wisdom” (1 Cor. i. 21), in respect of the only wisdom, real knowledge of God, they are as blind men groping after atmosphere and sunlight, as if endeavouring to know them through grasping them in their hands. But, though “ignorantly,” still they “worship” God, even Him whom Paul declares through (ver. 18) “Jesus and the resurrection” (cp. 1 Pet. i 4). It is true that Paul here speaks of that knowledge of theirs as “ignorance”; not the true knowledge which (John xvii. 3) is life eternal, but only “superstition.” Calvin, playing on the literal meaning of the Latin swperstitio (as if =“ surplusage”), makes a “ superstition ” in worship to be something added on to pure worship, like the colouring on stained glass, to the effect of screening out the clear light of God (see Rom. i. 28), as Adam sought to hide from Omnipresent omniscience behind a screen of garden trees. But even stained glass is proof of man’s original rela- tionship to the Light, though now (cp. Matt. xi, 19), in the corruption of his nature, he loves not the cloudless “ manifesta- tion” of that parent. Even on Calvin’s construction of meaning, superstition is proof that religion is natwral to man. But— Paul’s word, here (Acts xvii. 22) in adjective-form—in noun-form at Acts xxv. 19, is detsidaimonia, lit. “fear of demons,” or “of the demon.” From Cremer? we learn that at an earlier time it had (eg. in Xen. Cyroped. ill. 3. 36) the 1 The Greek for our “ devotions—sébasmata—means lit. objects of worship. 2 Lec. N. T. Greek (Clark’s Trans.). 12 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. good meaning of religion, “the fear of God”; but that in Paul’s time it had sunk into being employed “ usually in a condemnatory or contemptuous sense ” = superstition, cp. Plut. “ Concerning Deisidaimonia” (=“ superstition”). Still, even in this bad sense it had a back reference to corruption of a good thing. It implied a “drawing” of the soul towards super- natural things of the unseen world, or at least a feeling toward them, though it should be only in revulsion of affrighted horror from them. Superstition in the soul is thus religion blindly misdirected or misdirecting (cp. 2 Tim. ill. 13), were it only as a literal deisidaimonia of “devil-worship.”1 Were w only as a dead man’s ghost, haunting his house where he was murdered, it still is a witnessing reminiscence of religion as native to the soul’s rationality. So even in the atheistic ritual of Comte, and the pantheistic supplications of Renan, and the “spiritualistic” dabblings in a supernaturalism with- out God that now have come into the place of old prohibited “black arts” or older Egyptian “art magical.” The fact of religion, as in man’s nature, is thus evidenced by “the religious” systems of superstition, even the most monstrous: as the utmost hideousness in human “ works of art” is monumental of the existence of an artistic nature in man—a taste, esthetic “feeling after” the beautiful, the sublime, the picturesque. As a vague religiosity, religion is a visible fact in that Indian Santhal,? who has no place of worship nor name for deity, but who whispers about “the spirits,’ with a shade of awe coming on his countenance when he approaches to the deep gloom of the forest, or other places of nature’s own “dim religious light.” So? the New Guinea “savages,” with no instinct conception of a God, yet at certain seasons offer sacrifices, making reference to “the spirits,” and calling upon their deceased friends (not, let us hope, like Renan, without believing in their existence). teligiosity is not quite extinct in the lowest Australian “native” who trembles at a fetich, and perhaps has a dim 1 At Col. ii. 18 the Greek is thréskeia = religious service—as at Jas. i. 27, on which see footnote above, p. 18. 2 See Dr. Graham’s book on the Santhal mission. 3 Teste the Rey. Mr. Chalmers, of the New Guinea mission, to the present writer. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. "3 presentiment of a state of things in which Black Fellow shall be White Man,—though * the rationality in him should be so low that his smiling is non-human (like the grin that so startled Wordsworth’s Peter Bell ?). In such cases the forlorn soul’s condition may be as that of one who, outcast in infancy so as to have never known either parentage or family affection, yet experiences vague longings, which he does not understand, through the working in him of a filial constitution, which is a native wistfulness that seeks for home? It is Fatherhood of God that makes the soul’s completed rest in Him (Matt. xi. 28 ; cp. ver. 27; John xiv. 1, 2, 8). And correspondingly, with reference to His sending of the Comforter, “I will not leave you orphans” * is Christ’s own promise of the final Rest. As for the civilised peoples, we saw that religion, so far from being in their history only as a tadpole or grub condition of manhood in inchoation, is highest when they are at their highest,—eg. as represented in literature, the consummate blossoming of man’s rationality in articulate manifestation. And now as to the observable circumstance, that in some individuals, if not communities, religion is apparently quite wanting. Is it reasonable to expect that it should not be so? We might reason from the analogy of taste—eg. in music, painting, architecture—which is in the nature of mankind, though in some it should be dormant. More impressive is the analogy of that moral feeling, which is most nearly of kin to religion. Though “conscience” apparently be “seared as with a hot iron” in some individuals or communities, neverthe- less man is a responsible agent, with a corresponding capacity of feeling—“ moral sense ”—though that, too, can be dormant. Moral dormancy. Past feeling” at Eph. iv. 18, 19 describes a condition which, caused by atheism, may result in self-abandon- ment the vilest. The judicial abandonment at Rom. i. 24-28, on account of the crime of atheism, results in a moral condi- tion—“ unclean ” heart, “vile” affections, “ reprobate” mind— of which (ver. 31) a crowning description is (astorgos), “ with- 1 Teste a young traveller who had eyes. 2 Ps. xc. 1; ep. Prov. viii. 22, etc. See as to the young bird-of-passage below, p. 74. ® See the “mother” at Isa. Ixvi. 13. * The Greek for our comfortless at John xiv. 18. 74 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. out (storgé) natural affection” :—which there means, without those (private) affections toward one’s “own” (1 Tim. v. 8) which ordinarily are not wanting even in infidels. Though there should be thus a moral death in some individuals or communities—e.. a Rousseau exposing his offspring—it will not follow that love of children or of country is not in the nature of mankind. Even a “stony” heart is a petrified “heart of flesh.” Similarly, though an individual or a community should be atheistic, it would be wnreasonable to conclude that the fact of religion is not in the nature of man. It may be in the atheistic “stony hearts,” though dormant or dead (Eph. v. 16), as light and warmth are, though petrified, in coal. For the purpose of explaining away the historical fact that mankind is thus religious asa race, it has been suggested that religion may have been an invention of priests. But that is only putting the heart into the wrong side of the body. We might as well say that coal is an invention of gas manufacturers. The suggestion is of a sapiency like that of Sancho Panza’s benediction on the benefactor of humanity who invented sleep. So Calvin reasons that priestly in- vention could not have laid hold of men, and retained a strong hold on the heart and life of the peoples, if religion had not been a fact in the nature of the race. Religion cannot be made to shine in man as “a candle of the Lord,” unless man in his nature be a candle of religiosity. We thus are brought round ever to the point of inquiring, Is it not the reasonable explanation—that is, the true “theory ”—of the facts regarding religion, that religion is a fact in man’s nature, a light of the soul there, seeking toward God as the fountain of light; as the petrified flame light in the coal, when set free from its prison of darkness, and kindled “ag flames do kindle flames,” will rise toward its radiant original fountain in the sun? Revelation may conceivably so kindle that “candle of the Lord” in the nature that the awakened soul shall rise to apprehension of that for which it is apprehended (1 Cor. ii. 9, 10). It is conceivable that the soul at the outset should not know it is God that is thus being “felt after” ;1 as the young bird-of-passage is not aware of being drawn homeward by its 1 See above, p. 73. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 75 instinct of leaving the land of its birth So the waters rise heavenward in vapour from land or sea to that “river of God” in the sky from which they originally descended— perhaps first resting as a snow on peaks where earth meets heaven; then trickling down into fountains of the “ little hills” where flocks are tended; and thence rilling out into streams, with a blessing and a song for homesteads, hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, all down through the lowlands to the sea, A perpetual round of vital intercourse between earth’s lowliness and heaven high is what history shows as called for by the nature of man; though (Isa. i. 3) in places there should be a mere naturalism denying man’s true nature —e.g. where Stoicism freezes manhood into icicle as on Himalayan heights of egotism transcendental, or Epicurism pollutes it into puddle where prodigals are feeding swine. The question is not, as to the origin of the particular forms and ceremonies, the vestures and gestures or postures, which make the outward system of ritual in a religion. These may more or less have been devised by forecasting intention of some individual founder, who was naturally the Numa leader of the community in such matters. Or, as if by spontaneous generation, they may have grown out of a common feeling of what “comely is and right” in the common public service of deity. More becomingly, they would have originated in prescription by the deity himself, as it is the prerogative of a king to prescribe the ceremonial of solemn approaches to his throne. Thus in the Bacche of Euripides——who is prone to “theories” ? of things,—a son of God, new-founding a religion, being challenged (cp. Matt. xxi. 23) to say by what authority he does all this, answers only (cp. John x. 15), “ By seeing Him who sees, and I institute these mysteries ” (cp. our sacraments). So Moses (Ex. xxv. 9), in his erection of the Tabernacle, professed simply to copy the pattern that had been shown him from heaven, which (Heb. viii. 3) the Hebrews deemed an important point of religion, And even the craftsmanship of Aholiab and the great Bezaleel was controlled and guided by a heavenly inspiration. But no 1 Tt is said that the young birds take the lead of the parents in migra- tion from their birthplace to a home they have never seen! 2 Greek for wews. 76 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. matter by whom this or that religion was originated as an EE among mankind, it could not, as if “ planted i in the ” have taken root and lived in the world, if the constituteon a man had not had in it the fact of religion as a prepared soil (though a form of religion may continue for a time where the soil is exhausted). Such being the case, we may see nee to place the heart rightly as to position in the body. It is absurd to think of religion as an invention of priestly imposture ; but priesthood, in the sense of public official ministry of religion, may be created by the religion for itself, and for its purposes may exercise very great influence on mankind. In the seas near those archipelagos we thought of, a strong ship may pass through a numerous fleet of “little ships,” widely spread over the sea’s face in waiting for the fisherman’s “harvest of the sea.” In the night season, that face may thus to the voyager appear as a great meadow, that sparkles all over with count- less multitudinous lights of glowworms in a midsummer night. For in every “little ship” a light is visibly main- tained for safety. Now suppose that one of the company in a boat is set apart for the care of the life that guards the life of all. He is a picture of priesthood in the sense of public official ministry of religion. Sacerd-os+ is simply sacer, the e “set apart” for that office on behalf of all. There is no one of those fishermen who may not be thus a priest as well as king in his own household—a family Melchisedek (Josh. xxiv. 15; ep. 1 Cor. vii. 14). When family, after expanding into patriarchy, becomes constitutive of a nation (Ex. xix. 6), then the natural domestic ministry may be supplemented by a more general public ministry for the more general public purposes of the religion. , But all this is not the cause of the existence of the religion, but an effect of it. The individual soul’s awakening to life’s transcendentalism (Col. iii. 2) of aspiration toward God may or may not be through instrumentality of an official ministry or public ordinances of religion. It may be through a marked move- ment in the community as a whole, as if (John iii. 1-8) by mysterious influence of an invisible power, embracing that whole community as an atmosphere, descending on indi- 1 Gaelic, sagazrt. THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE, Te viduals, and abiding in them as a contagious baptism of fire (John i, 34; Luke 1.16). Very often—as in the case of Timothy at the feet of Lois and Eunice—the awakening is by means of natural ministrations of the household, family influences, a heavenliness round manhood from its infancy. Or, without any such distinctly traceable instrumentality or process, the new life of the kingdom may come into the soul “without observation,’—quietly as the evening star makes its appearance in the sky. The new thing is there in some lives (2 Cor. iv. 5, 6) where it was not shining before, and (vers. 3, 4) while others remain in darkness as of mere naturalism. And there, as a fact in human experience, distinct in radiant manifestation as a star (Phil. 1. 15, 16; Matt. v. 16), it may shine like a star “for ever and ever.” But it could not have shone there, nor have been there, if religion had not been a fact in the nature of man. As Justin, the prince “apologist” of the early Greek Church, saw in mankind a “dispersed reason” (logos spora- dikos), that is as a scattered seed of the Reason which is God,? so Tertullian, the prince “apologist” of the early Latin Church, heard in the utterances of Gentile religionism a “testimony of the soul as natively Christian” (¢estimonium anime naturaliter Christiane). To his apprehension there was in the dark, distracted, heathen mind of mankind, under- lying its idolatrous polytheism, a witness for the one true living God of Christianity. This he heard in those in- stinctive or spontaneous utterances of the soul, which are emitted when she is off her guard; in her unreflecting cries of sudden alarm, or grief, or gladness; in thoughtless ejacula- tions merely sportive; yea, even in meaningless use-and- wont profanities of speech. These, he maintained, implying, as they often did, the unity of Godhead, are so many surface relative indications of what lies deepest in man’s nature—as precious amber is flung out on the shore by Baltic storms, or “gems of purest ray serene” may be similarly brought up into view from “ dark unfathomed caves of ocean.” What he thus expressed with his own vividness of power was in sub- 1 Above, p. 63. 2 At John i. 1, logos is either “ reason” or “ word.” 78 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. stance really commonplace in the apologetic of that age, in its contendings for “the Monarchy,” that is, for the unity of divine government of the world. And—as we saw—it has been resumed by orthodox evangelism of our modern epoch, at the hand of most approved masters in Israel, in main- tenance of the competency of a natural theology. Thus one of the greatest of those masters (Owen), in a work on the whole matter of revelation as apprehended by mankind,’ maintains, eg. as to the unity of Godhead, that an apprehen- sion of this fundamental has ever lived and moved below the motley many-coloured garments of idolatrous polytheism. But, from our present point of view, what falls to be specially noted is, that Christianity itself, in the heart and life of Christendom, is far the greatest of the testimonia anime naturaliter Christiane. Christianity making Christen- dom is surely far the greatest fact in this world’s history—a fact as compared with which the four world-empires of Daniel’s prophecy are but so many passing shadows. But Christianity—true or false—could not have made a Christen- dom if there had not been a “light of nature” in man for apprehension of the new light of revelation in the Scriptures and in Christ. And, besides, it is this new light of professed revelation that has brought into view the full significance of the broken lights of heathenism and its religions. Not only, as compared with those glowworm lights of “ dispersed reason,” has it a fulness as of sunlight, “filling all in all” (Eph. iv. 10), but it brings into view the real meaning, and gives reality to the significance, of the heathen world’s religionism,—as the Hebrew youth not only gave to Nebu- chadnezzar the interpretation of his dream of world-empire, but brought back to his memory the forgotten dream. The light of nature in heathendom may at places be dead, cold, and dark as light-flame is in coal. Or, it may be dimly feeble as the light of manifested life is in the all but inaudible faint whimperings of a hound that hes dreaming of yesterday’s chase. But a stick or a stone does not dream about the chase; and a beast cannot dream about worshipping God. The very dreams of heathenism in its darkest nightmare horrors of superstition are, as now appear- 1 Theologowmena Pantodapa. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 79 ing in the light of Christianity, proofs of the fact of religion as natural to manhood. But not only so. Christianity itself is far the greatest of such proofs, as a sun outshining all mere glowworm lights. And now it comes before mankind, not as dependent on external props or stays, of super- naturalism in the rational constitution of man and in the religious constitution of man’s reason, but as being itself the transcendent historical proof of supernaturalism,—“ fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an enemy with banners.” At the very threshold of the question about super- natural in the scriptural system of this religion we are met by a great historical fact of supernatural in the existence of the religion itself among mankind. HS SeAU vey: THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. STILL with a reference to reasonableness, what we now will primarily consider is, the supernaturalism of the inspiration of Scripture, or the divinity of its authorship. We will avoid as ambiguous the expression “verbal inspiration,” and will proceed simply on the view that inspiration of a scripture means authorship of the (written) word. About any other kind of “verbal” inspiration—eg. of the printer’s ink ?—-we will not inquire. Nor will we inquire whether there can be any “literal” inspiration that is not “verbal.” heopneustos (2 Tim. in. 16; cp. 2 Pet. 1. 21)—lit. “ God-inspired,” with emphasis on “God”—-we will suppose to mean that God speaks this word, so that the Scriptures are His “ oracles.” Adversaries of this doctrine of inspiration are often found asserting or assuming that it means exclusion of human authorship of Scripture (as if here to affirm a supernatural were denial of nature). And individual believers may per- haps have appeared to go to that (heathenish) extreme. But it is constantly repudiated by the believers in the doctrine as a class. Among them it is, and has been, conventional to say that all Scripture is the word of God, and that all Scrip- ture is the word of man—Moses, David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, 80 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. John. Thus Rothe? labouring to prove that the believers in divine authorship of Scripture mean to deny its humanity of authorship, is on that same page contradicted by them even in the quotations he adduces (footnotes) from their writings for his proof. We will disregard as unhistorical the assertion or assumption that the doctrine in question means rejection of the fact of humanity of authorship of Scripture. Whether it may not imply that rejection is a different question, falling to be considered as bearing on the reasonableness or truth of the doctrine. We will preface our inquiry with what may serve a pur- pose of introductory illustration :— WAYSIDE NOTE introducing the question.—There was pro- duced and read an utterance of A B, regarding the “higher criticism,” to the effect—(1) That a definitive result of the criticism is to show, eg. that the Scriptures of ostensibly earlier date than, say, 800 B.c., really are known to us only as a collection of legends, etc., that came down from earlier times in a traditionary stream of the chosen people’s life of religion; and (2) that consequently the received view of inspiration is no longer tenable. Whereupon C D commented as follows :— To abandon that received view would be so far to abandon the Bible religion as placed by itself, to lapse from the founda- tion of Christianity as laid by the founders for all time. Irrespectively of the truth or falsehood of the doctrine, it is a matter of historical fact? that Christ and His apostles placed His religion for all time on the foundation of a divinely infallible oracular Scripture. Thus Peter, the (foundation) “man of rock” (Matt. xvi 18), for our establishment in assurance of Christian faith and hope, sets before us the (ancient) Scriptures (1 Pet. iv. 11; 2 Pet. i, 19-21), not as being in their fundamental part a collection of legends, etce., made, say, as early as 800 B.C. but as divinely oracular, like the spoken utterances of “holy men of God,” who “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Paul, too, is in this relation a man of rock, founding Christianity on divine infalli- bility of Scripture as oracular (Rom. iii. 2; 2 Tim. iii. 15-17). Timothy and his Anatolian flocks have to be guarded against “orievous wolves” (Acts xx. 28-30; ep. Rey. ii. 2), such as of a delusive worldly “philosophy” (Col. ii. 8), or (1 Tim. vi. 20) a falsely so-called science; especially against dealers in 1 Zur Dogmatik. 2 See below, pp. 99, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 81 legendary “fables.” Toward these the great Apostle of the Gentiles, in those Pastoral Epistles which are his last words to mankind, evinces a curiously varied copiousness of strong con- temptuous aversion. He has his eye particularly (2 Tim. iii. 13) on personal “seducers”? like vile, conjuring impostors of heathenism, misleading from the way of truth. And against all evil “winds of doctrine,” thus risen or to rise, the Rock on which he will have Christians to stand immovable, is the (ancient) Scripture; not as in large part a comparatively recent collection of legends, etc., of doubtful derivation, but as oracular, all divinely inspired, so as to be “profitable for doc- trine,” ete. It was so that the apostles had learned Christ Himself, in whom (John i. 18) the revelation shines out full and clear. In the opening of His ministry He was tested on this point of revealed religion (Deut. viii. 3, referred to by Himself in His first word to the Tempter, Matt. iv. 3) by the oldest (“higher” ?) critic of the word of God (Gen. iii 1-5; cp. John viii. 44); whereby the critic was himself criticised (John xvi. 11; cp. ix. 39°), The Scripture, The Scripture, The Scripture, His only shield and sword on that occasion of His “ fiery trials,” is what will appear as the Oracles, the Oracles, the Oracles of God in the militant life of Christians (Heb. v. 12) under Paul (Rom. iii, 2) and Peter (1 Pet. iv. 11), as well as in the witnessing death (Acts vil. 38) of the protomartyr of Chris- tianity. And it was the rule on which He avowedly proceeded in all His earthly ministry. Why? Because the Scripture is in its fundamental part (the first and the most quoted by Him) a collection of traditionary legends, ete.? Nay, verily (Matt. v. 17-20), but because it is (Matt. xv. 1-9; Mark vii. 6-13) “the word of God,” which “hypocrites” “make of none effect by vain tradition”; a “scripture” that “cannot be broken.” The ostensibly most ancient Scriptures were put by Him on the same level of inviolable authority as the most recent (Luke xvi, 29-31, xxiv. 25-27, 44). It is expressly with reference to the most ancient of all the Scriptures that He emitted by far His strongest declaration of that sacredness (John v. 39-47). And apparently it is with immediate reference to these that the protomartyr and the doctrinal apostle, if not also the Hebrew Christians and the apostle of the circumcision, employed the expression “oracles,” which only summarises the relative teaching of Christ Himself. 1 Greek, myths, at 1 Tim. i. 4, iv. 7; 2 Tim. iv. 4; Tit. i. 14; as also at 2 Pet. i. 16. * Greek, géetw, see below, p. 107. * In which places criticise is the Greek for “judge.” 6 82 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. 1. As to the nature of the inspiration. After the above comment, C D on the same day saw in an American religious periodical an utterance of an eminent Christian scholar, to the effect that, while the revelation in Scripture is divinely infallible, the divine inspiration of Scripture is not such as to involve “inerrancy” of all it says. The thing so expressed, relatively to divinity of Scripture, has often been said otherwise before, and now is variously “in the air.” At present we observe that it raises a preliminary question as to reasonableness, to be considered by us at the present stage, Is it reason- able to think that a divinely infallible revelation should bear false witness regarding the foundation of the revealed religion ? Revelation is, no doubt, a different thing from record. The record might be merely human, though the revelation be divine. The New Testament religion was founded on the revelation by Christ and His apostles, and the Old Testament religion by Moses, before there was any abiding record in the form of the respectively relative Scriptures. And it is easily conceivable, as an ideal possibility, that there should not have been any but a simply human record, prepared (see Luke i. 1-4) by men simply writing the best account they could of the works and words in which the revelation originally came. But the present question, as to reasonableness, is here of antecedent probability. And as the case actually stands, the fact of the matter is, that the professed revelation places the religion for permanency on the foundation of a Scripture that is infallible because divine ; the revelation says through Christ, with reference to foundation of the religion, “ the Scripture cannot be broken”; and through Paul, “all Scripture is God- inspired” ; and through Peter, there is no Scripture of pro- phecy that is not like the spoken utterances of those who “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” As a matter of historical fact, under the discipline of this professed revelation, men who embrace the religion are taught to base their trust and hope in God upon (Rom. xv. A) the Scriptures as divinely oracular. Is it reasonable to think that a divinely ‘nfallible revelation should so represent and place a Scripture THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 83 that is not infallibly divine? Here we seem to see the opening of a postern gate. A more detailed aspect of this preliminary question of reasonableness comes into view in the suggestion, often made on behalf of such utterances as the above, that the infallible divinity may pertain to the Scripture only in its high mys- terious doctrines, while it is humanly fallible in its plain historical facts. The enemies of the religion do not so think; from the supposed fallibility of this record with reference to plain facts, they reason to the conclusion that the religion cannot be of God. And in this reasoning, even with an & fortvort pointedness against the high mysterious doctrines, they may appear to be countenanced by a relative utterance of Christ Himself (John ii. 12), “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?” But “the present truth” in our question is, that the revelation, through Christ and His apostles, in its utter- ances regarding Scripture as the infallible ground of faith, makes no such distinction between intimations of doctrine and declarations of fact. A like inconsiderateness appears in an objection sometimes made to the proof of the doctrine, namely, that here there is reasoning in a circle, in that the word of the witness (Scrip- ture testimony as to inspiration) is taken for the character of the witness. It is forgotten, let us hope, by the objector, that the same objection was brought against the Word incar- nate (John ili, 14, 15), and by Him was repelled as wnrea- sonable—(1) The word of a witness may be good evidence regarding himself, as well as regarding anything else that he personally knows; eg. the record of the Baptist regarding himself, that he is not the Christ, as well as his record regarding Jesus of Nazareth, that this is the Lamb of God, regarding whom John previously bore record that He is the Son of God. (2) Also and especially, as regards our present case, the objection not only is feebly pointless, but misses the mark. For, as it was not only Christ in His discourses but His Father in the miracles that bare Him record, so it is not only the Scripture that bears witness regarding its own divinity. To say nothing about the internal evidence of 1 See above, p. 10. 84 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. divinity in it that is apprehended by the spiritual eye of Christendom (1 Cor. ii. 14, 15), the witness regarding divinity of Scripture is primarily borne by the revelation, in Christ and through His apostles, placing the religion on Scripture as its abiding ground. That Christ and His apostles did so place the Scripture at the foundation is not a matter merely of mysterious doctrine, but simply an historical fact. Another aspect of the preliminary question as to reason- ableness thus arises in connection with the purpose of placing the revelation in this record, namely (see 2 Pet. 19-21; 9° Tim. iii. 15-17; cp. Ex. xvii. 14, xxiv. 4, 7, xxxiv. 1, 27), “ for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and the world The Cumean sibyl, perhaps having no real purpose to serve through perpetuation of her disclosures of the unseen, committed them, as written on forest leaves, to the discretion of wandering winds. But even the heathen appear to have thought such carelessness—so unlike their own feeling toward “the books” called Sibylline—a strange thing. And con- sidering the declared purpose of the revelation to be served by this record, is it reasonable to think that the record should, e.g., in large part be a collection of legends, etc., such that the Scripture cannot be “the word of God”? Is it not reason- able to believe that the Scriptwres, as well as the apostles in their original “declaration” (2 Pet. i. 16), have been divinely prevented, eg., from “ following cunningly devised fables,” in such wise that the faith of God’s elect shall stand, not even on a wisdom of man, but on the power of God (1 Cor. i. 4; see the case at Matt. xxii29)? The faith, which is the root or living foundation of religion in the soul, how is that to repose on a Scripture that is humanly fallible? The rever- ence which is the soul of religion, the “fear of God” which “igs the beginning of that wisdom,” how is it to be maintained, as in hearts of men who “tremble at God’s word,’ by means of a Scripture that is not divinely oracular? What is the meet medium of that fellowship with God, which is the heart of religion in man’s daily life (see John xiv. 22-24), if it be 1 Westminster Confession of Fatth, chap. i. sec. 1. _ THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 85 not a word that is God’s own, such that (Matt. xi. 29) when we study it He is our master ?1! The method of preliminary consideration of reasonableness has this advantage, that it is practicable without labour of detailed investigation; as a bird can easily fly to a pinnacle that a man can reach only with difficulty through toilsome- ness of climbing. And though the facility have its perils (for flightiness) the method can be practised with a solid safety, and to good purpose, as if a Moltke were surveying a region from a balloon. In fact, it is to a thus true higher criticism that Paul calls men at 1 Cor. x. 15 (ep. vers. 16, etc.), namely, to exercise of good sense, sound judgment? exercised in considering the nature of things in question, with a reference to the true principle of decision in the case. Thus in Butler’s Analogy, one of the most solidly safe books ever written, the whole argument is speculative—con- sideration of reasonableness as appearing from the nature of the things——(1) Revelation is relieved from pressure of certain difficulties through consideration of the fact that the same or similar difficulties have place in the system of nature as known to us. And (2) consequently, by process of this ascertainment, the difficulties, overcome, come to be like the lion slain by Samson: out of them there comes a cumula- tive argument im favour of religion and Christianity; on the principle that difficulties, found to have place alike in this professed revelation and in the system of nature, constitute so many converging light rays of a circumstantial proof that presumably the two are from one divine Author. We, pre- cluded from speculative soaring by our plan of historical procedure, may venture only on short flights, even in Butler’s guarded manner. And to that guardedness we will endeavour to adhere in now further inquiring as to the reasonableness of the doctrine here in question. . OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE—wWe will consider, with reference to reasonableness, in the light of analogy, of what otherwise is known to us about the nature of things, about 1 See below, sec. 3. 2 English for criticism. 86 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. man, about God. The main objections to be so considered by us have reference either (1) to discrepancies which could not have existed if this had been God’s word; or (2) to the humanity of Scripture, showing that it cannot be divine. Under both heads there are difficulties in the way of believing the doctrine, such that some are unable to be- lieve it. A general answer to the objection on the ground of them is, that the existence of difficulty relatively to doctrine is not a reasonable ground of rejecting it if the evidence in favour of it be clear and full. Thus, with reference to external perception,’ there are difficulties — which perhaps can never be solved—in the way of believ- ing that through our bodily senses we attain to real knowledge of the external world; difficulties which drove Berkeley into idealism, and gave Hume the grounds and reasons of his universal scepticism. The difficulties are not ordinarily felt by any sane man as outweighing the full clear evidence of eyes and ears and hands (ep. 1 John i. 1-3; 2 Pet. i. 16-18). So it may be in the present case: the difficulties may not be such that it would be reasonable on account of them to reject the doctrine at the cost of rejecting the evidence in favour of it. A special answer is, that there is no alleged Scripture testt- mony against the doctrine. Scripture nowhere so much as appears to say that any part of itself is not the word of God. The objections, then, are mere objections to what, on the face of it, is the Bible view of the matter. 1. As to “discrepancies,” constituted by inconsistency of Scripture with itself (or morality, or truth), God cannot be the author of a self-contradiction (nor of any untruth, nor of anything countenancing moral evil). Hence we ought not, with reference to what we in any way own as His word, to venture on allegation of such discrepancy, unless there be proof of it beyond all reasonable doubt; nor to forget that we are judging as to a Scripture which Christ has declared inviolable. Yet even among professing Christians there some- times appears a tendency to exaggerate what appearance of discrepancy there may be, or even to imagine the existence of it where there is no real appearance of it. Witness Preben- 1 See above, pp. 22, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 87 dary Row,! “ who is not a verbalist, and whose testimony there- fore ought to have the greater force.” ? With rererence to allegation of discrepancies in the Gospels, Prebendary Row says :— “These have been exaggerated to an extent that is absurd. A large number of them admit of an easy reconciliation under the guidance of common sense. Others arise from the frag- mentary nature of the narrative, and our ignorance of the entire facts. Not afew of the remainder owe their origin to the fact that the events have been grouped in reference to the religious purpose of the author, rather than to the order of direct historical sequence. Of a few the reconciliation is difficult.” Is it reasonable to expect that it should be otherwise ?°® With reference to those “few,” a believer in the divinity of Scripture may have to “cast anchor and wait for the day” ; and some good men may be carried, in the way of adverse conclusion from “ discrepancy,” into erring on the side of being “righteous overmuch,” by fear of dishonouring the religion through seeming partiality in favour of its Book* But it is possible to be so blinded by adverse prepossession as to see discrepancy where there is none. The Tiibingen school, under blinding influence of atheistic prepossession, saw such discrep- ancy in the two scriptural accounts of the Synod of Jerusalem (Gal. ii.; Acts xv.), as to necessitate the conclusion that Acts is a forgery. But in fact there is no discrepancy, and there can be none; for the two accounts refer to two clearly and completely distinct matters: the things in Galatians being, (1) a private conference, (2) of four leaders, (3) about doctrine (bearing on discipline); while in Acts the things are, (1) a public synodical action, (2) of the whole Christian Church, (3) about discipline (depending on doctrine). An evangelical commentator sees discrepancy, which to him is decisive against “verbal” inspiration, in the four accounts of the superscription on the cross. The Gospels all give the superscription, but no two of them in the same terms; from 1 Bampton Lecture. 2 Professor Watts of Belfast, from whom our quotation is borrowed. 3 See 1 Cor. x. 15=“ common sense.” 4 See the considerateness at Ps. xxiii. 15. 88 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. which it is inferred that they contradict one another. But the inference appears unwarrantable. For it is conceivable that the superscription should be correctly given in all the four Gospels, though in four different ways. They may conceivably be intended simply to give the thing, as dis- - tinguished from the words (it is not Pilates “ word” that now is in question). And! it is conceivable that God's employing four different historians of one thing should have been for that very purpose, in accordance with their varied individualities. The inspiration would be (Luke i. 1-4) God's employing men according to their individualities. But so 7 is in any case. If there be any divine inspiration of Scripture, it is God’s employing men to write every one in his own way. The following sample allegations of discrepancy are from recent utterances of leading Christian teachers in connection with a testing case :— (1) There is objection to the doctrine of the divinity of the record (“ verbal” inspiration) on the ground of objectionableness of the matter it records, e.g., contrary to the declared mind of Christ and His apostles, the Old Testament moral teaching is found to be below our New Testament standard, and this finding is made ground of maintaining that the Old Scripture cannot be really and fully God’s word (ep. Matt. v. 17-20; John v. 39-47; Luke xxiv. 26, 27, 44). It is not merely against the record that this finding tells, but against the pro- fessed revelation, the religion of the Old Testament. If the revelation of that law was divine, why should a correct record of it not be divine? And if the revelation was not divine, being false, what escape is there from infidelity, unless on the Gnostic view that the Old Testament Creator is not the same God as the New Testament Redeemer ? (2) It is found (mistakenly) that the martyr Stephen made a mistake in his recorded apology ; and from this finding it is inferred that the record cannot be infallible (!), as if it were an office of an infallible reporter of speeches to correct the speaker's mistakes; which would make the history to be false. (3) An alleged omission of names in the recorded genealogy of Christ is made a proof that the record cannot be divine,—in plain English, that the gospel history here must needs be false. A genealogy is not necessarily—for its purpose—a census return of all ancestors: it is conceivable that the purpose of a genealogy 1 See below, pp. 95, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. §9 of Christ should not call for an exhaustive catalogue of His ancestry. There is not here so muchas a first-blush appearance of historical untruth. (4) A discrepancy, such as to necessitate abandonment of the doctrine of the infallibility of “all Scripture,” is found in the two statements regarding the centurion, that he went to Jesus, and that he sent the elders to Him! Another case is that of Zebedee’s children and their mother going to Jesus. They are cases of “what we do through another we do for ourselves.” They have nothing to do with real accuracy ot statement, and consequently have nothing to do with divine infallibility of Scripture. Surely Prebendary Row had occasion for his epithet “absurd.” Such looseness of unreason, relative to a matter so momentously vital in importance as the scriptural foundation of Christianity, on the part of men presumably not regardless of the interest of God’s honour and man’s good, is greatly to be wondered at as well as very gravely censurable. It tends to prevention of belief in God by Christ (1 Pet. 1. 21; ep. 2 Pet. 16-21), and to unsettlement of Christian faith (Luke xxli. 32; cp. 1 Pet. v. 10). And it is dangerous through its incoherent weakness, as raising clouds of confusion where there is most need of clear distinctness, or of the practical sense or solid judgment appealed to by Paul (1 Cor. x. 15). A “use of consolation” is, that the doctrine so assailed is presumably not assailable with reason. But Prebendary Row, while holding that want of “common "sense” is what is shown by much of the outcry about “ discrepancies,’ yet goes on to say that “of a few the reconciliation is difficult.” There are ostensible discrepancies which no man can explain. There probably will always continue to be such, as there always have been such in the past. What are we to think about such unsolved difficulties, of seeming self-contradiction in what claims to be the word of God, apparent untruth in a Scripture professedly infallible ? There is, we saw,! no real escape in the evasion of supposing that the infallibility has reference only to mysterious doctrines, not to plain facts. Nor is there escape in merely harping on misconstructions of the doctrine of inspiration, as if it had meant that the printer’s ink is infallible, or 1 Above, p. 83. 90 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. that the inspiration is in the “letter” as distinct from the spirit, while in fact 7¢ is the spirit in the letter. These are not ways of real escape from the difficulty, but may be ways of concealing, from ourselves or others, denial of the fact of divine inspiration. The difficulty does not need to be escaped from. Here we again resort to analogy of natural experience. In that experience there are difficulties theoretical as well as practical, of seeming contradiction to known truth, in relation to things that nevertheless are most surely believed by all sane men, They are believed because evidenced irresistibly, or beyond all reasonable doubt; so that, eg., the happy child whose case we considered, knowing his parents to be good and true, if he should see them do or hear them say what he cannot “reconcile” with his estimate of their character, may yet, reasonably, Jeave the difficulty unexplained. The child of God is able to leave unexplained the difficulties, if any, he finds inexplicable in Scripture. That is at this hour a fact: no matter what may be the outcry about “ discrepancies” on the part of debating scribes, the fact is that real Christians are not found fainting under the difficulties. Lapses from faith may be traceable to quite a different cause (2 Cor. lv. 3,4; John vy. 39-41). The persistence in belief of the doctrine, notwithstanding difficulty, is xeasonable on the assumption that the proof of it, in above-cited testimonies of the revelation regarding it, through Christ and His apostles, is really clear, wnless the difficulty be such and so great that the Bible cannot be believed in what it says about its own authorship. And if it cannot be believed in what it says about that, what can it be believed in ? Truly there is here, what Wolfe found at Quebec, “a choice of difficulties.” Those who flee from the difficulty of main- - taining the doctrine land in the difficulty of proceeding on the view that a divine revelation bears false witness regarding the Scripture which it places at the foundation of religion for all time. Is it reasonable, on the part of professed believers in Christ or Christianity, to assume, on account of the sort of “discrepancies” we have looked at, that Christ and His apostles, that the Second and the Third Persons of the God- head, were mistaken in placing this religion on the fowndation THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE, 91 of the Scriptures as oracularly divine? No difficulty will reasonably warrant abandonment of the doctrine of the divinity of Scripture that does not suffice to outweigh the evidence of Christ and of the apostles, or the evidence for the revelation. 2. As to the humanity of Scripture——Here, too, there is danger from confusion created by inadvertence or incapacity. For instance, it is alleged that the Scripture, because human, must needs be fallible, since “to err is human ”—Aumanum est errare. The thoughtlessness of such reasoning (where thoughtlessness is gravely censurable) becomes evident in the light of the fact that the ground of it would lead on to universal scepticism. If man’s liability to error be such that whatever comes through manhood necessarily has a taint of fallibility, then his reason must be so darkened as not to be trustworthy in any of its findings. But in fact the human liability to error is in some way provided against, counteracted, neutralised, so that those findings can be trusted even in matters of life and death—where “at the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” This much is accomplished by the providential “concourse of God,” who worketh all in all; and in particular, through that “ inspira- tion of the Almighty” which “giveth” to man whatever of “understanding” he possesses in the “spirit” that is in him. And it suffices for the purpose of showing that error is not in such wise inseparable from manhood that everything human must needs be tainted with fallibility; and con- sequently showing that the humanity of Scripture is no proof of its being fallible. Again, is it alleged as an objection to the doctrine of inspiration that it makes what is divinely spiritual and infinite to come through what—-as human—is finite and carnal? Answer—(1) Communication of spiritual through carnal is familiar in our natural experience. It is precisely the purpose and effect of every true word of man. From the first broken syllable that is lisped by infancy, all on through human life to Homeric poems and Demosthenian orations, there is ever taking place, through carnality of | articulate sound, communication of invisible spirit to invis- ible spirit of “articulate-speaking” man, That mysterious 92 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. symbolism of his words, which is unlike everything else under heaven, is the appropriate medium of his communications to his fellow. Hence it is reasonable—thus far conformable to the nature of the things in question—to look, as the peoples have ever looked, for an oracle, with its carnality of human utterance, as a medium of divine communications to mankind ; God’s logos (=“ reason” or “ word”—John i, 1, 14) so coming “by the door” (John x. 1), the constitutional way, of rationality (logos) in man. When we come to think (2) of infinity as communicated through the finite, we find ourselves comparatively in clear light and on solid ground. The thoughtlessness here proceeds on a principle that would make all religion to be impossible. For there can be no true religion unless there be some know- ledge of God; if indeed there can be even any false religion without some apprehension of deity—though it should be (paradoxically) of deity as unknown (Acts xvii. 23). Now if there be any knowledge of God in any creature, in that case there somehow is a communication of infinite to finite. Though the angel or archangel receiving it should (2 Cor. xi. 1-4) convey to us no whisper of what has come to be in his mind, yet in that mind his cognitive faculties are a finite medium through which infinity is known. And if the knowledge be divulged to us through some oracle, such as the trump of an archangel or the scripture of a prophet or an apostle (2 Pet. i. 15, 16), still, it has to reach us through our faculties, which are finite. And as the oracular medium is human, so the infinity of God’s mind assumes a finitude in form through that appropriation of our human speech. What indeed is the whole created universe—a speck appearing for an instant in the bosom of infinite extension and duration— but (Ps. xe. 1, 2) a momentary manifestation, through finitude, of eternal power and godhead (Rom. i. 20) ? But when the written Word of God is thus in question, the distinctively appropriate analogy is that of the Incarnate Word who is God. Rothe and others, asserting that those who believe in divinity of Scripture disbelieve in its humanity, are presumably themselves under domination of the view that it is ¢mpossible for a word that is really human to be truly divine. That view no doubt underlies a great deal of ‘teed «. ate — ” THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 93 such theorising as we now have glanced at. Hence men have confidence in a way of speaking which they would not have ventured on if seriously thinking of the real thing in question,—because they are prepossessed with a dominant impression that the doctrine they speak against is essentially absurd, so that it is not necessary to think about it closely: it is already condemned, the trial now being only a fatiguing form. That prepossession — domineering like the tyrant Strafford—to the effect that a really human word cannot be truly divine, we now will bring to the test of— The person of Christ—The prepossessing prejudice against the doctrine is occasioned by the paradox or “ strange thing ” in it, the seeming contradiction that appears in making a word which is truly divine to be really human. And on account of such paradox it might be maintained that the mysterious unity of soul and body in our corporate manhood is impossible. The objection is answered by the fact of the existence of that corporate manhood in every human being; for that cannot be impossible in the nature of things which thus is a fact in reality of existence. And so to the alleged impossibility of a truly divine word that is really human, a conclusive answer by the way of fact is found in the divine-human person of Immanuel. He is (dléthos) “truly” God, and yet (éeléos) “completely ” man: “ consubstantial (homéousios) with the Father in respect of godhead, and (homéousios) consubstantial with us in respect of manhood” (Chalcedon Symbol). Con- sequently, to maintain that a word is shown to be not truly divine by its being human, is by implication to reject the Catholic Christian fundamental of the person of Godman. That is to say, the principle that is applied adversely to the doctrine of inspiration would, if conceded, necessitate rejection of the doctrine of incarnation. Note on the analogy of Christ’s person.—In Immanuel we see the supreme of the paradox, of infinite coming into our life through finite. Men striving to escape from the paradox in His person, destroyed His religion in that foundation. On the one hand, modifying the Godhead in Him to the extent of an iota (putting homoiousios=“ of similar substance,” for homd- ousios, “of the same substance’’), they lost Him, and sank from Christian religion into idolatry, putting a creature on the 94 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. throne of God. On the other hand, denying the complete reality of His manhood, men reduced incarnation into mere theophany, leaving a desolate humanity to lament with the Magdalene, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” No doubt He hath declared the Father through universal creation and providence, as that Word who in the beginning was with God, and by whom all things were made. But it is especially through His assump- tion of our nature, wearing our manhood and sharing our human lot, that He enables us to see the invisible God (John i. 18, xiv. 8-10). It is thus that there comes to be in Him for us the fulness of grace and truth, not only in respect of the efficacy of His atoning sacrifice, and the example of His holy obedience, and the consolation of His fellow-feeling, but also, through the carnality of taking on Him not the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham. It is “bodily” that there is in Him that “fulness of god- head” in which we are complete, as the bays along our shores are complete in the ocean. It is through His reality and com- pleteness of manhood that we are enabled to apprehend in Him “the true God, and eternal life” (1 John v. 20). In the sacrament of the Supper it is not our mere bodily sense, but the rightly constituted soul, that apprehends the spiritual reality which quickeneth (Matt. xvi. 17; 2 Cor. iv. 3-6). But, while it was to and 7m the soul of man that He showed Him- self, it was through the bodily sense. Thus at His transfigura- tion, if Moses and Elias appeared in glory, it was to the bodily sense of those disciples, who heard them speak and saw them shine. The mind of the invisible Father was in hke manner made known from the most excellent glory, by means of articulate human words which remained indelible in His disciples’ hearts (cp. 2 Cor. ili, 2, 3). And in the central figure the glory of eternal Godhead shone through manhood ; so that, for description of the self-manifestation, the evangelists appear as if in rivalry of ransacking the vocabulary for words to declare the glory that was seen. 7 All which goes to illustrate the fact that the doctrine of the veritable divinity of Scripture, so far from excluding its humanity, natively demands that humanity, real and complete ; while, on the other hand, if the doctrine makes infinite to show itself in and through finite, this, as appears from the analogy of the Incarnate word, is a presumption in favour of its truth. Why does Scripture receive the same name—“the word” of God—as the Second Person of the Godhead ? THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 95 2. Bearing of the doctrine on human authorship of Scripture. Without perpetrating the foolish irreverence of attempting to get rid of paradox in the constitution of a human word that is divine (1 Tim. iii. 16), we may endeavour to feel our way to some views in connection with the jfact (2 Tim. iii. 16) of a divinely-inspired Scripture that is of human author- ship. We will take asa sample the Scripture that is most familiar to us, and inquire, What can be the human agency in producing divinely-inspired gospels ?? 1. There is employment of four evangelists to produce an evangel.2 Their individualities are not to be destroyed, for they are to be employed. The evangel is to be fourfold ; and thus they are to be, not a marionnette under four masks of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, but the men themselves: never more completely themselves than when writing these evangels (evangelia), which are one evangel (evangelvwm). Inspiration, as involving employment of men, does not efface nor even suspend the human individualities, but calls them into action and conserves them in use: “they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” This is in accordance with the Creator’s whole relation to His creatures: employment of them on His part involves conservation of their individual- ities in use. The mania of heathen prophecy was a con- dition like that of a demoniac, whose personal identity is lost in that of the possessing demon: a condition essentially different from that of “the holy men of God,” who “ spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The conception of a “mechanical” inspiration, through which the human _indi- viduality of the organ of divine utterance, overborne as if submerged in the deity who speaks, is a heathenish con- ception; which, in the Christian view of divine inspiration, falls to be not only repelled as false, but revolted from as profane. The imputation of that conception to Christians by whom it is repudiated is a shameful calumny. It is in this light that we construe certain utterances, the occasion of much offence regarding the human authors of Scrip- 1 See full external details below, in Essay on The Canon. 2 Huaggelion—-Greek for ‘“ good tidings” —as our “ gospel” is Saxon for the same. 96 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. ture as being pens of God, flutes of the Holy Spirit elhey give offence through being misconstrued, as meaning that the inspiration makes the man to be merely a passive organ of utterance. They ought to be construed as, when employed in illustration of the doctrine here in question, simply descriptive of convplete possession and use of the producing human writer's faculties by the deity inspiring the Scripture produced.” A divine possession is not a supersession, but the con- trary. What it involves is, not effacement nor suspension of a creature’s free individuality (2 Cor. iii. 17), but a com- pleted fulness of God-given freedom in the individual. A penman cannot be merely a pen. But a man whom God employs as penman may be a man-pen of God (“ Rabbi” Duncan). His being God’s pen insures his being completely free in all the writing; for, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” He is in full exercise of his own dis- tinctive human individualities ; for it is this individual man that is employed? A human flute of the divine Spirit is a man whose whole distinctive individuality is, because employed divinely, therefore most vividly alive and free; as were the dry bones in Ezekiel’s valley when that Spirit breathed upon them (cp. Gen. ii. 7) to make them a great army. [Of machines 7] Effacement of the writer’s individualities would not have served the presumable divine purpose in employing those individual writers, but would have defeated it. The managers of a London newspaper purpose to lay before the public a fourfold view of the contemporary history of a neighbouring country in a time of war. Therefore they employ four correspondents, every one of whom has a marked individuality in description, and instruct them to delineate the whole movement, every one in his own way. The result is* one full correct representation of it all, in the combined “ effect” of four independent reports, from four distinct points of view. Such, in fact, is (evangelium in the evangelia) what we have in the four Gospels. The true “harmony” of the Gospels is, the totality of their combined effect, in representation 1 Lit. “ Breath ”—znsprre. 2 It is the Scripture that is inspired: the human writer is employed in producing it. 3 See the “ chosen vessel” (Acts ix. 15). 4 Op. “ Harmony of the Gospels.” THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 97 of Jesus Immanuel’s earthly ministry: that is what makes the one perfect whole view of the great ministry. Now this effect is in fact produced, not through effacement of the distinctive individualities of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—in fact they are not effaced—but through employment of them all: in fact they are all employed, witness every page of the books. Efface- ment or suspension of any one individuality would have de- stroyed the representation as a whole in its intended effect, as if one of the newspaper correspondents had been turned into a copying machine. There cannot be a full harmony of four voices unless every one of the four be completely itself, (A jumble amalgam of four is not a harmony.) So of this harmonyin which the Spirit glorifies Christ (John xvi. 14, ep. xv. 26, Day flow that thing can be is a mystery; and we have to accept the mystery unless we reject the fact. The mys- teriousness is in the fact of employment of creatures by the Creator. Abstractly we may be able to think of such em- ployment—use that does not destroy but conserves. And concretely we can understand how four newspaper corre- spondents, all completely free, and every one of them working in his own way, in full exercise of his own particular indi- viduality, are yet all completely at the command of one employer, accomplishing fis particular purpose. But the employment of a man-pen of inspiration involves a mystery beyond the moral suasion, which in that case produces the subjection of one free will to another. Here there is, not only suasion of instruction or entreaty or command, but, in the writer’s mind (2 Pet. i. 2), a directly causal efficiency of an agency that is not his, determining its action as absolutely as if he had been a literal pen or flute. This runs up—(1) into the mystery of God’s primary causation in all things, “working” (energon) in them “according to the counsel of His own will” (Eph. i.11). The operation may further (in “oly men of God,’ not Balaams) be coinci- dent with (2) a mystery of efficacious grace (Phil. ii. 12, 13) of God, “ working ” (energon) in men, “sovereignly, both the willing and the doing,” while they “work out their own sgal- vation with fear and trembling.” But still, even on those ines, it extends beyond these two things into (3) a mys- teriousness that is distinctively its own. 7 98 | THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. For here alone there is in the product of the creature's agency, not a work of God, but “the word of God.” The mysteriousness here, though in its general nature, of involv- ing employment, it be the same as otherwise appears on lines of the two creations, old and new, yet at least is highest in degree. The case is thus unparalleled. But if now we accept the mystery—which in some degree has place in all the cases of God's employing creatures—we have in the mysterious fact a vitally important possession of knowledge, namely, knowledge of a Scripture which, com- pletely (¢éleos) human, is at the same time (aléthds) truly divine. Through the divinity of Scripture we do not lose its humanity; but—as in the case of the person of Christ *— we gain both natures in a dual-unity. Still, as in the In- carnate Word, so in the written word, the vitally essential matter for us is not the humanity but the divinity (2 Pet. 1. 20, 21; cp. John xx. 28), The humanity is only the hand that touches us: divinity is the power that heals us. And to tamper with the divinity of Scripture—eg. in deference to speculative inferences from its humanity — might be like “Hellenism” of the fourth century putting an iota into the homéousia of the Redeemer’s person. Obvious suggestions here presenting themselves, with re- ference to the general character of Scripture, cannot here be dwelt on, but may be glanced at as in some measure connected with the special matter of our present question—eg. (1) As to meaning of particular passages or books of Scripture? (1 Pet. i. 11), that a scriptural utterance may have for us an ampli- tude of meaning beyond what was present to the human writer’s mind (cp. John xii. 16). (2) A suggestion more clearly in the line of our present inquiry is, that (Heb. 1. 1) the Scripture as a whole, of many parts in one, may have in it an evidence of unity of authorship that is proof of divinity of Scripture throughout all its parts. If a multitude of inde- pendent reports on localities, by contributors working separ- ately all over the world’s face, combine in forming one coherent gazetteer account of the whole world, that will be proof of unity in management of all the working. And as of such re- porting distributed over space, so of the authorship of Scrip- ture distributed over time: only, while the gazetteer-conception 1 See above, pp. 93, 94. 2 As to “interpretation,” see below, pp. 118, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 99 could be formed and carried out by one man in one short part of a human life, the similar production of the Scriptures can have been planned and accomplished only by One who, seeing the end from the beginning (because foreordaining it), controlled all the producing work of brain and pen on Scriptures through 1500 years. 2. As to the species or mode of employment.—-Without intruding into the mystery here, on the face of the matter we can see, as a fact, employment (1) of a witnessing memory on the part of apostles—two of whom will become historians, and (2) of a reporting judgment on the part of historians—two of whom are not apostles. As the historians now are nearest us, being here in our hands, we will begin with considering the reporters’ judgment in their Gospels. (1.) Reporters’ judgment, say, on the part of Mark and Luke, According to Papias! Mark simply digested into narrative the materials of Peter’s “ teachings” which he had heard. In his Gospel there are a few places which on that view might have to be regarded as filled in by Mark himself (in Luke’s manner—Luke 1. 1-4), for the purpose of main- taining continuity of the stream of narration, which, as a whole, is to be a reproduction of Peter’s testimony regarding the earthly ministry of Christ. Supposing the matter to be so, what would be the effect of inspiration here? It would be, a perfect report of Peters testumony in Mark’s manner. Newspaper managers know what is meant by a perfect report, e.g. of a speech in an assembly. A bungler may reproduce every word of the speech in such a manner as effectively to misrepresent it. A perfect report may be only an abstract, but (1) it is a miniature picture of that speech to the life, and at the same time is (2) as a picture in its frame—fitted ¢o fill precisely the place that would be occupied by that speech in a true lwing representation of the whole proceedings of assembly.2_ No one can doubt that our Mark’s Gospel really satisfies the two conditions: that (1) it is the Petrine story of the great ministry ;* and (2) it so fills its own place in the quaternion of Gospels that no conceivable other book would by 1 See below, pp. 207, etc. 2 Thus to reproduce even a Dogberry may require the genius of a Shakespeare. 3 See Renan’s testimony below, p. 210. 100 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. mankind be accepted or tolerated in that place. If the writer of Mark was a man-pen of God, all his individualities, of education, bent, and capacity, and special relationship to Peter (1 Pet. v.13; Acts xii. 12), must have been employed in this reporting. He was chosen for this work on account of them. It was a report in his manner that was called for in that place of Scripture as a whole, or of the Gospel quaternion. At the same time, here as elsewhere, “the scriptural style” of inimitable authoritative tender sanctity falls to be regarded as being, if we may so speak, the style of “no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” * But we do not need to suppose that Mark’s Gospel is thus virtually Peter’s. One tradition makes Peter to have declined responsibility for it. In any case, Mark was an independent historian on the same footing as Luke. He as well as Luke had abundant accessible materials for authentic history of the best quality, constituted by the “declarations” of apostles (1 John i. 1-3; 2 Pet. i, 16-18; ep. Heb. ii. 3), who “from the beginning had been eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,” and whose distinctive office it was? to bear record as eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses regarding the facts in the ereat ministry. (If John and Matthew become evangelists also, that is an additional matter.) A writer on inspiration is found assuming, as if it were a matter of course, that when Luke speaks of information as derived from those “who from the beginning were eye- witnesses and ministers of the word,” he means that he relied on whatever loose miscellany of gossip might be picked up among such as had come into personal contact with Christ! Of course this masterly historian means that he relied on the testimonies of the apostles in their “teachings,” who had been divinely chosen and ordained and qualified for first-hand witness-bearing regarding the facts of that history he was writing (cp. 1 Cor. iii, 8-15; Rom. xv. 20; Acts 1. 8, 21, — 22). The misrepresentation of Luke was for the purpose of justifying denial of the divinity of “all Scripture” Of accounts derived from apostolic “teachings” there (naturally) was “embarrassment of riches” (cp. John xx. 30). Luke’s plan 1 Westminster Confession, i. 10. 2 See the following sub-section (3). THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 101 now was to prepare a comprehensive digest, perhaps “ boiling down” many such accounts; he could submit it, if he chose, to Paul or (see 1 Cor. ix. 5) to one or more of the original apostles,—perhaps also comparing notes with Mark. His history was to be fitted for the requirements of thoughtful men desirous of obtaining a clear connected view of the great ministry as a whole. A man such as he was—so able, scholarly, industrious—could easily obtain abundant materials for an authentic history,—for instance (Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4,11) in the quiet leisure-times after Paul was first shut up in prison (cp. 1 Pet.i.13; 2 Pet. 111.15,16). He has pro- duced a masterpiece which has been pronounced “the most beautiful book in the world.” A gospel in his manner was called for to fill this other place in the quaternion ; and conse- quently he, too, was employed in this work as a man-pen of God.” Trrespectively of inspiration, we thus have in these two Gospels what scholarly infidelity may recognise as thoroughly authentic history: the work of two real masters, each in his own way, who had abundant access to first-hand information of the best possible quality, witnesses whose earnest truthfulness it would be worse than childish to question. As regards historical trustworthiness of the books, the only possible— Effect of a divine inspiration is to constitute an additional euarantee (cp. John xiv. 25, 26) that each narrative shall be perfect 7 rts own manner and for its own particular purpose while serving—in order to serve—the general purpose of the quaternion of Gospels and of “all Scripture.” But, as inspira- tion does not efface individualities of writers, their works will present the same appearances of “discrepancy” that would be found in uninspired gospels all perfectly accurate—appearances arising out of differences of individuality in writers, all original in the true sense of every one looking at the matter with his own eyes, and speaking of it with his own words; so that they may appear to contradict one another when in reality they are speaking about distinct things, or about the same thing from distinct points of view. Why should there —inspiration or no inspiration—be real difference of two such men as Mark and Luke in a matter so grave? They were not slip-shod. 1 See below, pp. 206, etc. 2 See Renan’s testimony below, p. 210. 102 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. (2.) Witnessing memory+ on the part, say, of Matthew and John (John xiv, 25, 26, xv. 26, 27; Acts 1. 8, al ad Dt Heb. ii. 3; 2 Pet. i 16-18; 1 John i, 1-3; Luke i. 2). As contemplated from our present point of view, John and Matthew the evangelists do not differ from Luke and Mark. And in that respect in which they differ from them, namely, as being apostles whose “declarations” were the original materials for evangels, we contemplate them along with the other apostles, whose “foundation” office of primary witness- bearing as to facts in the earthly ministry of Christ had the same rank as theirs had, namely, that of the fundamental “ declaration” (note the “we” at 2 Pet. i. 16, and 1 John1. 3). That foundation testimony was the distinctive purpose of the apostolic office. And for this purpose the apostles received a gift of memory, which may be described as the Pentecostal memory, and which—though improperly, yet for convenience of use at the present point—we will speak of as a miraculous memory. It may be inferred from internal evidence of the Gospels themselves that, immediately after the great Pentecost, the subject of that apostolic testimony to which they owe their materials was carefully considered by the apostles jointly (it may have been prelected on in course of the Forty Days— Acts i. 3, 4; cp. Luke xxiv, 44), and that thus there came to be, underlying all particular apostolic “ teachings ” afterwards, a ground or substance of common apostolic testimony repre- senting the collective apostolic recollection of the great ministry. On the part of the College of Apostles there thus would be, formally or virtually, an exercise of judgment with reference to the selection and grouping of materials for the common testimony, like (John xx. 30, 31; Luke 1 1—4) the exercise of judgment on the part of an individual evangel- ist with reference to selection and grouping of materials for his particular Gospel. Inspiration would not supersede the collective gudgment so exercised, but would employ it, as at the conference of Paul (Gal. ii.) with the Jerusalem “pillars,” and (Acts xv.) at the. Jerusalem synod, where apostles participated in the deliberation as well as in the utterance, “It seemed good unto the Holy 1 See conjectural representation below, pp. 199, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 103 Ghost and unto us.’ An individual apostle afterwards, in bearing his foundation-testimonies, would not be restricted to things he could remember as having occurred in his personal presence, but, so far as desirable, could give details that were known to him as being in the collective memory of the apostles. Paul might thus come to be as one of them, though “out of due season” (in fact he did not so come). Matthew might give in his testimonies, as in fact he gives in his evangel, the story-of the Transfiguration, which he did not personally see, and the most copious report of the Lord’s discourse on Olivet, which he did not personally hear. (Regarding the Temptation history, the only personal witness must have been Christ Himself, as, presumably, Paul himself was the only personal Witness regarding the Damascus appearance of the Lord.) There thus came into existence a collection of digested and sifted apostolic information, which, for the few simple great matters of the evangel, was the very best conceiwwable material for ordinary history. Some of the apostles had been personally followers of Christ (John iii. 1-11; cp. i. 29, etc.) from the very first beginning of His public ministry (cp. Acts 1. 21, 22), though perhaps (Luke v. 1-11) not continuously at the outset. On special occasions of comparative privacy in His ministry (cp. Mark xiv. 49; Acts xxvi. 26) He was accom- panied by several of them. When we consider the nature of the occurrences on those occasions, we perceive that three such witnesses as “ Peter, James, and John” were just as good as twelve, or as three hundred—since nothing can be clearer than daylight. Of course it was not from primary apostolic testimony that Matthew and Luke derived their information regarding the period before the ministry of the Baptist. But substantially, the whole material that now con- stitutes the Gospels was most authentically in the apostolic recollection of the Twelve,—all of whom were tried most terribly in the matter of simple truth of witness-bearing as to plain facts, regarding which it was impossible for any of them to be materially mistaken. What conceivable better “ founda- tion” of authentic history cowld there be ? What, we now ask, would be the effect of a miraculous gift of memory in the case of one of those primary witnesses? It would simply be, his perfectly recollecting what he had 104 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. personally known of that Word of Life, whose eye-witness (1 Pet. v. i) and servant he had been. “ Remembrance” (John xiv. 25, 26; cp. 2 Pet. i. 12, 13, and 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25) was for an apostle what “holiness to the Lord” had been to the high priest, shining on his brow and breast. That is* re- appearance on his mind’s eye what is im it now, because it had been on it previously. It now is recognised as having been in the mind before, when it first came to be on the mind through eyes and ears. Peter may (John xii. 16) now understand the Transfiguration occurrence, as the Philistines comprehended Samson’s riddle when he gave them the solution of it, and (see Peter’s account, Mark ix. 2-8) may perceive that he did not understand it at the time, since the resurrection has now cleared away the morning mists. Still, the thing he remembers is in that past. Recollection (“remembrance”) of a thing is, owr now per- ceiving it as we knew wt in that past. And it was not vaguely knowledge or comprehension, but distinctly recollection — “remembrance ”—-that was the intended effect of the Spirit’s work in the mind of an apostolic witness regarding the earthly ministry of Christ. Peter's perfectly recalling to mind the occurrence as he perceived it when it was taking place? is like Nebuchadnezzar’s recalling to mind his own dream when it is narrated by Daniel,—thus far, that, no matter how it is brought back to his mind, he now recognises it as being what was on his mind before. The effect of the Pentecostal memory thus is to place us on the spot of the occurrence in gospel history, looking on through Peter’s eyes, listening with his ears—beyond possibility of mistaken memory on his part. The eyes and ears would be none the worse witnesses if Peter had got the use of them through miracle after being deaf and blind from birth. Similarly, his memory is none the worse witness on account of its miraculousness, unless God be a deceiver, as Hume thought our eyes and ears may be false witnesses. An apostle thus is a perfect witness, as if (2 Cor. v. 20) God Himself were now telling us what Peter saw and heard. And in the gospel histories, what we have is the apostolic 1 Re-collection ; Greek, ana-mnésis. 2 See again Renan’s testimony below, p. 210. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 105 “remembrance,” as collected, digested, and recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What inspiration here secures is, (1) that the recollection shall be perfect in its kind, of the witness’s now perceiving in the present what in that past he saw and heard; and (2) that the digest shall be perfect for its purpose, as one of the four evangels that are to be the abiding record of that evangel which now is in the apostolic “remembrance.” Inspiration leaves quite undis- turbed the fact that we here have in the ordinary form of authentic history, THE TESTIMONY OF THE TWELVE AS DIGESTED BY THE Four. And—w#.B8.—(1 Johni. 3; 2 Pet. 1. 16-18) what the witnesses themselves appeal to is, not their inspira- tion, but their having eyes and ears. 3. Bearing of the inspiration on faith and the fear of God. This we will contemplate in a fruitful though peculiar light (2 Pet. i, 13-21), as it is placed by one whom we will provisionally call the second Peter. Referring to a later stage! the question of his claim to be the first Peter, we will at present make use of his Epistle only as placing dramatically the matter of our present question in a light that may be helpful to us in the present section. At vers. 16-18 (chap. i.), with a reference to establishment of believers in full assurance of faith and hope (cp. as to the first Peter, 1 Pet. v. 10; Luke xxii. 32), he speaks of the funda- mentally vital importance of the personal testimony of apostles, which (cp. 1 John i. 1-3; Heb. ii. 3) is the primary “ declara- tion” of Christianity. And in particular, he points to the fact, that this testimony is a solid ground of historical belief, as appears from its having originally been derived from the things themselves, by the eyes and ears of the witnesses: a fact illustrated by contrast of “cunningly devised fables.” ? “But,” he goes on to say (vers. 19-21), “we have a surer thing, the prophetic word.”? This, as he goes further on, we perceive to be the “Scripture” (of the Old Testament; cp. 2 Pet. iii, 15, 16). Swreness in the Word, as ground of 1 Appendix, p. 138, below. 2 Greek, sophisticated myths ; see above, p. 80. $ Literal rendering. 106 THE REVELATION. AND THE RECORD. solid certainty (vers. 10, 13, 14), on which we can con- fidently venture to live and die, is the point of his statement here. One ground of assurance, a firm basis of historical belief, is constituted (vers. 16-18) by the personal testimony of the apostles regarding what they saw and heard in the earthly ministry of Christ, as contrasted with day-dreaming of mythical or fabulous representations. And now (ver. 19), by the “more sure thing,” he may mean (cp. Eph. il. 20) a deeper foundation of belief, such that the Scripture has in it a ground of a profounder faith than historical faith resting on the testimony of eyes and ears, For he now brings into view, as the specialty of Scripture to be rested on, divinity— its having in it, as ground for our faith, the trustworthiness that is constituted by divinity of authorship.2 In any case it is the Scripture, as appearing in “prophecy of Scripture,” that he now proceeds to eulogise as being, by virtue of its diwinity of authorship, a perfectly trustworthy guide through life and stay in death. Here we will not linger on the side-question, how the suggestion of a superior quality of trustworthiness in the Scripture, as compared with the personal testimony of apostles, might bear on authority (see Eph. 11. 20) of apostolic “ Scrip- tures” (2 Pet. i. 15, 16), then (in the first Peter’s time) in process of coming into existence. The writer’s mind (just as if he had been the first Peter) is looking toward that hitherto condition of believers in which (cp. 2 Tim. ii. 15) the apostolic Scriptures have not come distinctly into view as alongside of the Old Testament rule of faith. Regarding the apostles, the only thing now in his mind’s view is, the credibility of their testimony simply as human witnesses declaring what they have seen and heard, such as they were at the time of making the original “declaration.” His point — on behalf of them thus is only that their bodily senses were trustworthy. And the difference he now has in view is only between a testimony that is divine (being in the “Scripture ”) and a simple human testimony (say of Peter, James, and John). 1 See above, pp. 80, etc., and pp. 97, etc. * Cp. “The Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures,”—Westminster Confession, i. 9. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 1073 The incomparable strength of divinity (in Scripture), as an objective ground of faith, is what we now will consider under the form of a running commentary on the curiously interesting specialties of the passage :— COMMENTARY ON 2 Pet. i. 19-21.—On account of the character of “the prophetic word” as “more sure,” we shall do well to give heed unto it as to a light shining in a dark place. The word for “ dark ”—auchmeros—occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It literally means filthy or squalid. The first Peter no doubt heard Christ’s description (Matt. xii. 43; Luke xi. 24) of the unclean spirit that has gone out of a man as wandering in “dry places.” The word there — anhudros, lit. “waterless” (cp. Ps. lxiii. 1)—is found also in the second Peter (ii. 17). By “dry places” here the first Peter might understand a place like those which, filthy and squalid, were frequented by the Gadarene demoniac, in desolate misery of a darkness enduring until (2 Cor. iv. 6) the “day star” of the healing light of Jesus arose in his heart ; as (2 Cor. iv. 4) it did not shine in those who preferred their swine to his lost soul. The demon, which Christ represented as frequenting the “dry places,” may (Matt. xii. 38, etc.) have been a professional theologian, a biblical critic or “scribe,” who cavilled at the Incarnate Word of God. Paul, in his last letter (2 Tim. 11. 15- 17), spoke, like the second Peter (i. 15) as with dying breath in highest commendation of the written word (Old Testament), with a strongly pointed emphasis on the divine authorship of that Scripture all through as warranting ground of faith immovable. And this he did for a like purpose with the second Peter, to establish young Timothy and others in their Christian belief; in particular, by guarding them against a class apparently of theologians, blind leaders of the blind, whom he described as (“seducers”) géeta—tricky, selfish conjurors, professors of infamous “black arts,” going on from bad to worse, “ deceiving and being deceived.” They thus remind us of the unclean spirits returning from the dry places, to his house (man), “empty, swept, and garnished,” along “ with seven other devils worse than himself.”? With reference to those biblical scholars of our own time who for a season were made famous by the mythic theory of Scripture history, we note the aspect of Paul and of the second Peter toward mythicism (as if the second Peter, like the first, were a contemporary of Paul writing to Anatolian Churches). As the second Peter (ver. 16) earnestly repudiates everything mythical, so a scornful denunciation of myths (“fables”) 1s 1 Is “ Agnosticism” thus A HOUSE TO. LET ? 108 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. found in every one of Paul’s Pastoral Epistles. Christian communities in his Asia Minor, which (2 Pet. iii. 1; cp. 1 Pet. i. 1) also was the habitat of those addressed by the second Peter, thus appear to have been in grave peril from dabbling in such legends, etc.;! which Paul represented variously, as a shallow antiquarian old-womanish gossiping, such that, how- ever, it may be mischievous though weak, like a malignant aged witch. Against all such things the Scripture is a “ sure” defence, because it is wholly God’s own infallible word. The | hankering after such things was fatally symptomatic of a woful apostasy from faith (2 Tim. iv. 1, etc.), against which the Epistle of our first Peter and the later Pauline Epistles are especially fitted to warn and guard the Churches (cp. Acts xx. 28-30), and against which our second Peter is all one warning cry. Nore on mythicism.—The craving for such things as “ fables ” or myths, then creeping into those Churches, appears to have been specially connected with the Old Testament. It is illustrated by copious allegorising of Philo Judeeus, a sort of heathen-Egyptian Hebrew contemporary of the apostles. In his extant works of Old Testament “historical criticism,” the Bible history, especially in its fundamental or more ancient part, is perilously near to being explained away into legends, etc., if not into sophisticated myths or “cunningly devised fables.” Ancient Egyptian “ philosophers” were—lke Baur and other recent “critics” of the Bible—under domination of the atheistic presupposition that there is no supernatural God, but only a Nature which at bottom is a characterless “being, equal to nothing.” So, in Egyptian “dry places,” Philo might learn to put “the thing that was, and is, and shall be,” where the Bible (Ex. iii. 14) has “The I am that was, and is, and shall be” (Rev. i. 8—free translation). But the true source of mythicism in that old time was not aberrant Hebraism, but heathenism, as in filth and squalor of a spiritual desolation, vainly seeking rest in “cunningly devised fables,” eg. about appearances of gods in human form. Heathendom was full of such fables, now no longer seriously believed, but woven into poems and plays of unbelieving religion. A poet, whom Paul quotes (Tit. i. 12) as “ one of their prophets,’? is, while speak- ing of the Cretians as “all liars,” in that hymn doubly a har himself; praising a god that is not, and whose existence is not believed in by this “prophet,” nor, indeed, by any one else. Still the fables, though not really believed in, had for the dark heathen mind a certain fascination, as the forsaken 1 Cp. above, p. 80. * Callimachus, we suppose ; Epimenides too has the verse. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 109 sepulchres had for the Gadarene demoniac, and as “veiled infidelity ” has for some professing Christians now. The fascination was beginning to creep among the Christians as a pestilence that walketh in darkness. And the “light shining in a dark place,” for their protection against it or deliverance from it, was, not only (1) the fact of the historical reality of the things declared by the apostles, but (2) and especially, the infallible divinity of Scripture. This, the character of Scripture as divine, is the supremely “sure” defence against gdete with their quackeries and mythical theorisings, and all other such deluders and delusions. So this Peter reasons on the ground that, unlike the lying “ prophets ” of heathenism, the “holy men of God ”—whose oral utterances were of the same type as these written utterances—“spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” From the divinity of the spoken word to divinity of the written word, he hardly feels need of reasoning. They are two modes of one thing— divinity (of utterance) in human form (Heb. 1. 1). THE UTTERANCE in Scripture—While faith, as a root of religious principle in the soul, is immediately related to the divinity of Scripture as a root is related to the soil that both sustains and feeds it, on the other hand, religious feeling, as represented by the expression “the fear of God,” is in a special manner related to the wtterance, which makes the oracular character of divinity in Scripture. That utterance is spoken of in the passage, 2 Pet. i. 19-21, in a manner which impressively demands attention to the subject of it. And in continuation of our exercise on the passage we now direct our attention to that subject. Those who imagine that there can be an inspiration of a Scripture that is not a “verbal” inspiration may have some notion of divine “ideas” floating in the air, like “songs without words,’ when men are talking like Moses and Khas on the Mount of Transfiguration. The world’s greatest master of wisdom in song had a stricter conception of the relation of ideas of a Scripture to its words. To his apprehension— as in Justin Martyrs experience'—so long as the ideas are only in the air—while “the poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ”—they are but “airy nothings,” as of “imagination bodying forth the forms of things unknown.” That which 1 See above, p. 62. 110 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. fixes them (Americanism) “turns them to shape,” “gives them a local habitation and a name,” so that (ep. John xiv. 22-24) we may apprehend them and they may abide with us, is, “the poet’s pen.” We, inquiring as to the scriptural utter- ance in words, are not avoiding the subject of the ideas of Scripture. On the contrary, we are inquiring as to the only way in which those ideas can reach us (John i. 1, 14) or we can reach them (John v. 39). The scriptural ideas are in the Scripture words expressing them (cp. 1 Cor. xiv. 2, etc.). The words of Scripture are the only way to its ideas. If revelation be represented by “the poet’s eye,” inspiration is represented by “the poet’s pen,” as placing the revelation within reach of us in utterance. Instead of Moses and Elias talking, there may be men “sensing” the Scripture, arbitrarily putting into it a meaning of their own, reading their “ideas” into it, instead of rationally receiving in it the expressed mind of God. For the present we pass from the declaration against that arbitrariness that is made so memorably in our passage. And with reference to the utterance we need not linger on the distinction between scriptural and oral. For in the passage the point of transition from one to the other is, not the difference in their form, but the sameness in their substance,—the sub- stance, namely, that in both alike is constituted by divinity expressing itself through man. The scriptural utterance is what this Peter has primarily in his view. To the oral utterance he refers in proof (illustrative sample) of divinity as a character of the scriptural utterance. And it might be a profitable exercise for some of those who reason against the divinity of the Scriptures in respect of authorship to consider whether the same reasonings might not apply in disproof of the divine inspiration of the speeches of the “holy men of God” who, it is understood, “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The first Peter, in his Mark account of the Lord’s tempta- tion (i. 12), has the very strong expression, “ and immediately” (after the Jordan baptism) “the Spirit,” which then came upon Him, “driveth Him into the wilderness” (epzballe). Similarly the second Peter (always like unto the first) here 1 See Appendix on the “interpretation” clause, below, pp. 113, ete. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. LEI speaks of the oral utterances of the “holy men of God” as having been under impulsive determination of that Spirit, whom the ancient Church confessed as “the Quickener, the Sanctifier, the one who spoke through the prophets” (Creed of Constantinople). The expression here is—as if imperfect tense—they “spake” (such was their way and manner of speech) ,“as they were moved? by the Holy Ghost”: where we seem to see—both in revelation and in record—anticipa- tion of “the Spirit driweth Him into the wilderness.” And the first Peter (iv. 11) speaks to the same effect of the scriptural utterance when he describes the Scriptures as “the oracles of God.” ? It will be remembered that “ utterance ”—distinct articula- tion in speech (which Homer makes characteristic of man as rational), and not simply revelation—was the distinctive work of the Spirit in the apostles (Acts iv. 4), and the gift for which they prayed (Eph. vi. 19). Correspondingly, one of them says expressly (1 Cor. ii. 15), “ which (the revealed) things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Chost teacheth,’ as the plan of the revelation was (vers. 4, 5) that in this way the faith of God’s people should be made to “stand, not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.” If, then, we will have an “inspiration of ideas in the Bible ”—meaning that somehow divine ideas ave there—let us here accept the Bible idea of inspiration. Is there any possible meaning in what the Bible says about the utterance—whether oral or scriptural other than what is really meant by the received evangelical doctrine of inspiration ? But the Bible lays a yet stronger emphasis on the utterance as being of God for the expression of His meaning through man. In misrepresenting the doctrine as one of “ mechanical” inspiration, its adversaries mean to represent it as coarsely irrational, implying a kind of dictation on the part of God that is incompatible with the nature of the free rational soul of man. Paul braves that censure in saying, “ We 1 Lit. “borne along ”—pheromenot. 2 Lit. “mouth-utterances” of God (cp. the expression “(proof) from the mouth of God”=from Scripture, in the Scottish nation’s preface to its Confession of Fath, A.D. 1561). 112 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. speak in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” and in bidding the Ephesians keep praying (Eph. v. 19) that “utterance may be given unto” him, But still more, it is braved in the scriptural description of divine agency as putting words into the mouth of him who speaks the word of God. On that description we will dwell for a little in the following— Note on “putting words into” a prophet’s “mouth.” —Those who speak of the received view of inspiration as involving coarse irrationalism would do well to consider this description of the making of a prophet.—(1) The description, “putting words into a man’s mouth,” is in Scripture a description of God’s work in the making of a prophet (Ex. iv. 10-16 ; Jer.1. 9; Isa. vi. 6, li. 16; Deut. xviii. 15-18). (2) It always refers to the very greatest prophets—Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah ;—and by two of these it is employed with reference to ¢he great prophet that should come.! (3) In all the cases the one who employs the description is not the Scripture historian merely, nor the prophet speaking of what God has done to him, but primarily the Lord Himself, solemnly announcing the nature of that work of His, through which this or that man shall truly be a prophet, as an earthen vessel containing this treasure, so that the excellency of the power may be of God, not of man. Dictation is objected to as implied in the received view of inspiration. There was dictation (Heb. vii. 5; Ex. xxv. 9) of the plan of the Tabernacle and its furniture, to which Moses was commanded strictly to conform in all things: so that in the fabric Israel might see the manifested mind of God and not of man. And now, in the written word, which we have in place of that silent visible word, the same purpose, of our being placed in immediate reliance on divine infallibility, is accomplished through the divine inspiration of Scripture: for, as the second Peter reasons, the divine action in scriptural utterance is in its essential nature the same as it was in the original utterance by mouth. The process of God’s making man to speak Hs words, or to write His words, has been derided as incompatible with the rational nature of the soul. But Aholiab and Bezaleel did not the less, but the more, employ their own skilful craftsmanship in the erection of the Tabernacle, on account of their being God’s instruments, under powerful direction of His Spirit that was in them. We cannot comprehend the process of God's 1 See His own description of His “utterance” at John xiv. 10. THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. ed employing a writer so that the resultant Scripture shall be divine. We do not need to comprehend the process. What we do need is to know as to the result of the process, whether the Scripture is or is not infallible and oracular, “the very word of God.” And this He shows us in His pictorial definition of His making of a prophet—putting words into the mouth of a man. 4, APPENDIX on “ interpretation ” (2 Pet. 1. 20). The famous “interpretation” clause in this verse has occasioned whole libraries of controversial commentation. We, for our purpose, will so far touch on the controversy by paying some attention to a claimant! to successorship to the Apostle Peter’s throne (which never was vacant—Rev. xxi. 14), namely, the prelatic Bishop of Rome. Romish ecclesiasticism forbids “private interpretation” in the sense of a private individual’s judging for himself what is the meaning of the Scripture he reads (cp. 1 Cor. ii. 15,.x. 15). The prohibition proceeds on the view that Scripture cannot be trusted to be thus its own interpreter, but if left to itself would be a “nose of wax” (the expression is Romish), which private judgment would shape at every man’s individual discretion, so that, for prevention of endless confusions, the Scripture has to be “sensed” by Romish ecclesiasticism (fixing the otherwise “nose of wax” in a fine commanding Roman shape). Conse- quently, the Council of Trent, while the private Christian is forbidden to study the Scriptures except by special licence of ecclesiasticism, places under anathema the student who will find in Scripture a meaning that is not in accordance with the interpretations of “the Church” (of Rome) and “the unani- mous consent of the fathers.” Here there is one sound principle of interpretation, namely, that an interpreter in order to be authoritative has to be infallible. And thus far the Romish claimant—eg. in making the Pope infallible—coincides with the second Peter at 1. 20. The word there for “interpretation ”—epilusis—is of rare occurrence, with the ordinary meaning of release (eg. from prison).2 In its adjective form—epilutikos—it has the meaning of opening wp or solving (eg. a problem: so Samson “ inter- preted” his riddle). And in verb-form it occurs at Mark iv. 34, in a description of Christ by the first Peter (Mark's Gospel), who, we note, has uncommon words in common with the second Peter (as if the two had been brought up together 1 See Epilogue to this Appendix. 2 Cp. Bunyan’s address to his Pilgrim, “Go forth, my little book.” 8 114 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. in one “ speech-bewraying” Galilean village). There we read that the Master, in addressing the people publicly, “spoke not without a parable,” but that privately it was His habit (imperfect tense—sic sedebat) to “expound all things to His disciples ”—as Samson expounded his riddle. There we see what in one sense was “ private” interpreta- tion. It was private in the sense of not being given out publicly, but being confided to the disciples apart. But this is not the kind of private interpretation that is by the second Peter here pronounced incompetent and unlawful. The illegitimacy or incompetency in his view arises out of the nature of the Scripture as being divine in its authorship. Because—he reasons—the primary author of Scripture is God, therefore the meaning of rt not as a private property, in the sense of being dependent on the will of individuals or of man, who so may shape it at pleasure. It came (like the sunshine) by God’s action, for manifestation of things to all the world ; consequently it is not a mere nose of wax, as the sunlight 1s not a candle or gaslight off the Vatican. To which Protestant evangelism responds, True,—as it is only Samson that can give the solution of Samson’s riddle, and only Christ is the com- petent expositor of His own parables——so God, the Author of Scripture, alone is the true competent authoritative interpreter thereof? That is, the authoritative interpretation of infallible Scripture is to be sought in infallible Scripture itself. Paul reckoned the Scriptures capable of making their own meaning clear sufticiently for working purposes (2 Tim. ii, 15), “they are able to make thee wise unto salvation”; although (2 Pet. iii. 15, 16) the second Peter knows that men are capable of making a bad use of the good word of God, wresting Paul’s Epistles, as well as the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. Another view of the clause makes “ private interpretation ” to mean the arbitrariness of putting a construction on one part of Scripture without reference to its connection with the system of Scripture as a whole;—as if a scientist should explain the eye without reference to the body. At the opposite extreme from this exegetical atomism is the Cocceian view, that all the system ought to be found in every part of Scripture : which, however, may be only a paradox like that of Leibnitz in saying that we do not rightly see one atom in the universe unless we see the universe in that atom. That other view of the interpretation clause coincides with the view that is given by us above, in so far as it excludes mere 1 Op. the Philippian magistrates releasing Paul from prison. 2 Westminster Confession, 1. 9. ~ THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. LL arbitrariness of “sensing” Scripture,—ruling it instead of being ruled by it, that is, by “the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures.” Yet another view is, that the “interpretation ’—epilusis, “release ”"—means authorship, as if emission from the mind. According to that view, the meaning of the whole sentence (ver. 20) is, that there is no (Old Testament) Scripture of which the authorship is not divine. And this, consistently with our above exposition of the whole passage, would fit into the connection, dovetailing into the immediate connection with verses 19 and 21. But it does not fit very well into the connection, and it does not seem to be warranted by known use of epilusis and its cognates. The relative point for us in our present inquiry is, what the connection shows to be the hinging point in the famous sentence now before us, namely, that the divinity of Scripture saves from uncertainty, such as would result from its being dependent for its meaning on the mind or will of man. The supposition of its being thus dependent would result in “incurable scepticism,’ which has been represented as being ever at the heart of Romish dogmatism, because the dogmatism has to proceed on a supposed infallibility of Popes and Councils. The scepticism cannot be absent from the heart of any Protestant opinion that does not repose on the Rock of the divine infallibility of Scripture. EPILOGUE regarding the successorship to Peter's throne (cp. Matt. xix. 28; Rev. xxi. 14)—The throned witnesses as condition of eligibility to office, that they had seen the risen Christ (Acts 1. 21, 22; 2 Cor. xii. 12, 13), were able to work miracles in token of their apostleship. It is not quite certain that Peter ever saw Rome, though probably he was there for some little time before his martyrdom (John xxi. 19). It is morally certain that he never was there before the close of Paul’s imprisonment spoken of at Acts xxxviil. 30, so as, e.g. to have founded the Roman Church, which (Rom. 1. 8) years before that time was famous over the world. And it is impossible in any case that he should at any time have been Bishop of Rome, as the sun cannot be a gaslight of St. Peter’s Church there; since every apostle belongs equally to all Christendom. But passing over all these difficulties and others, let us consider only the difficulty, inherent in the Romish claim, that is constituted by impossibility of localising the infallibility, that has to be somehow centred in the prelatic Bishop of Rome. 1 Cp. liberavi animam meam, “I have let out my mind.” 116 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. 1. It is now impossible for any man to know (infallibly 7) who is that supposed bishop. According to Romish doctrine, none can be a bishop who is not first a duly ordained priest, and none can be a priest who is not a Christian through baptismal regeneration, and no sacrament—e.g. of orders or of baptism— is efficacious and valid unless there be intention, on the part of him or of them by whom it is administered. That one condition of intention puts it completely out of all human power to know (infallibly ?) who is bond jide the Roman bishop, or even whether any true Roman bishop ever existed. For, how conceivably can any man ever know, for certain, that there never has been any one case of absence of “intention” on the part of the administering individual in all the baptisms and ordinations, for the making first of Christians and then of priests, that, in order to the existence of a veritable bishop anywhere at any time, must have extended as a multitudinous- linked chain all down the line of generations from the time of Peter? Now, a link broken at any point makes a broken chain—as if an inch were cut out of the Atlantic cable. Where, then, is the infallibility to be sought and found, that we may know the meaning of Scripture ? 2. Though we should know that there have been veritable Roman bishops, it would, on the Romish view, be impossible for any creature to know (infallibly ?) who, if any, is now the true successor.2 On the Romish view, no one can be a true successor without unbroken continuity of true succession, of genuine bishop succeeding genuine bishop, from the apostles downward, as in a wondrous golden chain. But what if one link be brass? That it is not so cannot be certainly known by any finite intelligence. For instance, there have been “ anti-popes” —several suns in the firmament—more than one claimant at a time, denouncing one another as impostors. On one occasion there were five such rivals in the field at once. In one century there were five occasions of the rivalry. What finite intelli: gence can make (infallibly ?) sure that, as “Providence is on the side of the strongest battalions,” so in those ecclesiastical campaignings (not to say caballings) it was always the genuine successor that got the upper hand, so that now there is no broken link, or no brazen link, in that long descended chain ? Where is the infallibility ? we are again driven to cry. 3. As for the interpretations of “the Church,’ and “the unanimous consent of the fathers."—(1) How are we to know “the Church,” or the true orthodox “ fathers,’ unless we know the successor, who is their centralsun? Is it a hedge-priest of 1 Cp. F. Turrettine, De Circulo Pontificio. 2 Arab Calif. AS TO THE CANON. ake Rome that is to inform us infallibly ? to decide infallibly for us between, say, Dollinger and Vaticanism, Pascal and Jesuitism, the Reformers and Leo X. and Alexander Borgia? (2) Who is infallibly to tell us what are the Church “interpretations,” and what is the unanimous consent of the fathers? Is it the hedge- priest that is to lead us over all Scripture, in the light of that tradition, always infallibly 2? Or is the bog-trotter himself to have all the fathers by heart, and the dogmas of Councils, and the bulls of Popes, and “the Church” traditions generally, comparing these with the “sensing” of every part of Scripture by his bishop or priest ? A more reasonable way seems to be to read the Bible as the open Book of God for man, so as to be “built on the foundation of the apostles and of the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone” (Eph. 11. 20). They appear more likely “to make the simple wise” than the said ecclesiasticism is; more likely even than unbelieving criticism, with six or seven hundred “theories,” all saying, “Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and see what J will send you.” ESSAY IV. AS TO THE CANON. (1.) Or THE NEw TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES GENERALLY. CaNnoN—*“ cane” or “reed”—means a rule, such as may be a straight-edge, which consequently is a sceptre. Canon of Scripture means the totality of those writings which, upon the view of their being inspired of God, are entitled to rule the religious faith and life of men. With the conception of a thus “canonical” Scripture, the primitive Christians were from the outset familiar through its being exemplified in the collection of Old Testament Scriptures; and the conception was early formed into a clear distinctness in their minds by the process of ascertaining the New Testament canon. Their acceptance of certain books as New Testament “Scripture ” meant that in their judgment these books are divinely inspired writings of apostles and their authorised associates. And what we at present will inquire into is, not the inspira- tion of the books or our existing New Testament canon, but only their genuineness and authenticity. 118 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. In the present connection, authenticity is more general in meaning than “genuineness” is. What it means is that the book is historically trustworthy in its representation of primeval Christianity, as being the work of an honest writer who had good means of information about that matter, or at least as deriving the materials of its representation from good sources. A book might thus conceivably be authentic, though, as regards professed authorship, it should not be genuine but spurious. For a forger might conceivably write from good information, eg., as to facts in the history of Christ and His apostles, or of the rise of Christianity down to the close of the first century ; and he might more or less give a faithful account of that history, or furnish us with some means of knowing the facts of the history—even though he should wish to mislead us by misrepresentation.’ Though, for instance, as the Tiibingen school of Baur main- tained, the existing New Testament Scriptures had as a class been forgeries of late date in the second century, they yet might have been valuable sources of authentic history of Christianity in the first century. For a forger would not make a repre- sentation of that first century such as could not be credited by his intended readers; while on the other hand those readers, the second century Christians, had good means of knowing, were it only from their fathers and grandfathers, at least the main plain facts of Christian history in the first,—as the French people of our day have good means of knowing main plain facts of the history of the first French Revolution.’ But the question of the canon has reference not only to authenticity as thus understood, but also to genuineness. A “genuine” Scripture (as contrasted with “spurious ”) is one that really was written by the supposed writer of it. It is conceivable that a genuine historical work should not be authentic. For instance, it might be an historical romance, not pretending to be authentic history. Or it might be really a romance, though professing to give a correct representation of historical facts: it might fail to do so through dishonesty 1 Cp. the account of the Reformation movement by the Jesuit Maim- bourg and in Bossuet’s Variations of Protestant Churches. 2 Cp. Whateley’s Historic Doubts, regarding the existence and surpris- ing career of Napoleon I. AS TO THE CANON. 119 on the writer’s part, or through ignorance or other incapacity. In our present case, on the other hand, a Scripture may be genuine in the relevant sense, though it should not be the work of the individual to whom it has heretofore been ascribed, or though it should always remain uncertain what individual was the author of it, if only the writer have been one of the apostles or of their authorised associates (which is the point in question as to the proof of Christianity). Thus, relatively to the proof of Christianity, The Epistle to the Hebrews would fall to be regarded as genuine Scripture, though it were conclusively shown to have been written by Silas or Luke; and so would The Apocalypse, though it should be found that the writer of it was not the Apostle John, but a “presbyter” John, who (traditionally) was a sort of alter ego or double of the apostle, and an associate of apostles like Silas and Luke. For the historical Christian interest involved in the canonicity of a Scripture may not depend on the individu- ality of the writer of it. That interest may depend only on his being of the circle of apostles and their associates. Of course, if a Scripture profess to be the work of an individual who really was not the author of it, then it is spurious as well as false; thus, 2 Peter must be a forgery if it be not a work of the Apostle Peter.’ Our existing Old Testament canon was fixed centuries before the coming of Christ, witness the existence of a Greek trans- lation of its books dating so far back. As our subject is not the literary history of the Bible, we may, with reference to that original canon, at present simply recognise the historical fact of its having been received, as it now stands, by Christ and His apostles. At present, in preliminarily inquiring with re- ference to the proof of Christianity, our interest in the matter of canonicity will be sufficiently met by studying it in con- nection with the New Testament Scriptures. That restriction of inquiry for the present of course will greatly facilitate the task and lighten the labour to be undertaken by us here at the outset. At the same time, relatively to Old Testament Scriptures, it will secure for us the advantage derivable from learning, in the sample case of the New Testament, what is the nature, and what the possible value, of that provision for 1 See Nore on its genuineness, below, p. 188. 120 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. the guardianship and safe transmission of sacred books, to which we are indebted, under Providence, for our heritage of Scriptures. And, through familiarising us with the literary and general history of Christianity in the first and second centuries—so far placing us at home in that early period—it will help to bring us into an historical point of view, and a condition of the judgment, highly important for justly esti- mating the whole proof of Christianity. The question to begin with is, How can we expect to know whether, as matter simply of historical literary judgment, the books now in our hands were really written by apostles of . Christ and their authorised associates,—as it 1s known, ¢.., that in their century certain books were written by Josephus and Philo Judeus, by Seneca and the elder Pliny?* The internal evidence, of holy truthfulness in the matter and spirit of the books, commending itself to minds inwardly qualified for appreciation of such evidence, will for our present purpose only be referred to in order to completeness of survey. Our main direct inquiry will be regarding pro- perly external evidence, though extending to some inward characters of the contents of the books. And with reference to that external evidence the inquirer may at first sight of the problem be thrown into a feeling of baffled bewilderment, which might find some expression as the following :— Here I am confronted with a vast complexity of matters, through whose labyrinthine intricate obscurity it seems vain for me to hope to thread my way. Lver since these Scriptures began to be written about, there were questions regarding them breeding other questions, all transmitting confusion. They have multiplied continually, as if in a geometrical progression through the ages. And the confusion has in this way been growing ever “worse confounded,” as a river gathers ever darkening pollution in its progress through the land, so that the compound which Londoners or Parisians call the Thames or the Seine is hardly the same element that flows in clear streams near the fountains. A juryman may have some such feeling when he first looks at the intricacies of a case that is to be tried by his 1 Isaac Taylor, Transmission of Ancient Books, and The Process of Historical Proof. AS TO THE CANON. 121 judgment. But he finds himself brought into clearness, of warrantably confident decision of the judgment, through those very processes which at first appeared fitted or fated to draw him into perplexity past all hope of extrication. And the result of all the controversies about authorship of New Testament books has been, so far to clear the air and bring the matter into manifested ripeness for final determination, that an ordinarily intelligent man may face the subject with a real expectation of being able to play the juryman in this momentous case. He may, ¢.g., with no great difficulty make what for many in our day would be the vitally important attainment, of beiny sure, historically, that he is really listening to Paul, and to Peter and John, in the first century,—as he may attain to historical certainty that he is listening to Wilberforce and Burke, Johnson and Goldsmith, in the eighteenth century. He now can hardly begin a real study of the subject as it stands without becoming aware of such facts as the follow- ing, established beyond all question among men of sane mind who are acquainted with the subject :— (1) All the books of our existing New Testament canon were held as canonical in the bosom of the Christian community within a century of the Apostle John. (2) No one of these books has ever been displaced from the canon by the gudyment of the Christian community in any subsequent century. (3) In all the Christian centuries, no other book has been so held as canonical New Testament Scripture. 1. As to direct proof of the Canon. Far the most important historical proof is simply the fact that these books, and only these, have been received as apostolic’ in the Christian community from the earliest time to which the literary history of Christianity can be traced—that is, as far back at least as into the second century. In the middle of the present century, it was laboriously attempted by learned infidels to bring down the date of the origin of these Scriptures far into the second century—as far, say, as to A.D. 160 or 1“ Apostolic” in this relation is elliptical, meaning that the author was either an apostle or an “apostolic man,”’—an authorised associate of apostles. Closer definition does not affect our question. a i ey er 122 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. 180. This was for the purpose of leaving a ground of possi- bility for the view of those infidels, that the historical infor- mation contained in these Scriptures is in substance fabulous or false (cp. 2 Pet. i. 16; 1 John i, 3; Heb. ii 3,4). The attempt was made with a vast amount of energy as well as pertinacity. And it has been completely defeated “along the whole line.”? On proper grounds of literary historical judgment, on the approved methods of scholarly ascertainment regarding authorship of ancient books, the primeval antiquity of the Scriptures has been demonstrated afresh, and their cenuine apostolic authorship established anew, on the old foundations of evidence, now placed in clearer light. But even the learned infidels did not venture to suggest a doubt of the fact we have now begun with,—namely, that before the close of the second century those Scriptures, and only those, which at this day are on the New Testament canon of the Churches, were held as genuine apostolic in the bosom of the primitive Church. This fact, even as thus generally stated, is itself a very strong proof of the received canon generally. In parallel cases, the kind of evidence that is constituted by the fact 1s recog- nised as valid in the judgment of literary history. A book is held as proved to be the work of A B simply by the fact of its having been received as his in the community to which it pertains. And the degree of evidence thus constituted, on behalf of the New Testament Scriptures, is incomparably higher than the degree of this kind of evidence on behalf of any ancient heathen literature. But the evidential force of the general fact is very greatly augmented by convergence of detailed lines of circumstantial evidence which come into view on closer consideration of the fact. Thus— 1. The peculiar character of the community receiving the books—in respect of opportunity of knowing about the fact of the matter in relation to them, qualification for judging as to the fact, and interest in ascertaining the real truth of the matter.2 Compare, for instance, in these respects, the English 1 The late Principal Cairns. * If one of the books was “doubtful” at the close of the second century, the Church feeling of interest would be against it, while now it is in favour of it. AS TO THE CANON. 126 people receiving certain books as works of Milton, Bacon, and Shakespeare, with the Christendom of seventeen centuries receiving certain books as works of Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is like comparing the British Channel to the world-embracing ocean. The only real parallel to the reception of the New Testament books in Christendom is, that of the reception of the Old Testament books in ancient Israel, and the more recent case of the two is variously much the stronger; while each of them in various ways greatly strengthens the other (cp. the two sides of an arch—Eph. ii, 20). 2. A judicial finding, without parallel in ordinary literary history of mankind, has entered into the Church’s reception of these books,—a deliberate exercise of the judgment of the Christian community on the question of their apostolicity, as a matter of vitally fundamental importance to true religion and God’s kingdom among men. On occasion of the Diocletian persecution! there was a distinctly conscious nisus of the judgment of the Church collectively, with formality of judicial procedure in her Courts. Some of the “traitors” (traditores), under discipline for having “given up” (tradere) their Scriptures to be destroyed (cp. Matt. xxvii. 2; Luke xxiv. 20), pleaded in extenuation that they had given up only insignificant minor Scriptures,’ suggesting, too, that these might be of doubtful genuineness. Hence a necessity of distinctly judicial finding of Church Courts in the case of those Scriptures, with reference to the general question, What really are the genuine apostolic Scriptures ? But antecedently to that, a continuous action of judgment on the part of the whole Christian community affirming the genuine apostolicity of the Scriptures now in question, was implied in the very fact of the Church’s holding them as her sacred books. It was implied in the very idea of a New Testament canon, analogous to the Old Testament “rule” of faith—an idea that is visibly operative, as a germinant concep- tion collecting Scriptures into one body, in that antecedent condition out of which the canon first arose, among the 1 See above, p. 6. 2 See below, pp. 138, etc. 8 When Eusebius means to tell us that an early father held a book as apostolic, he simply says that he “used” it. L24 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. orthodox as early as the middle of the second century, and among heretics’ at a yet earlier time. It is important to note the fact thus appearing that— The canonicity of these Scriptures, their title to be received as apostolic, has never rested on the authority of “the Church,” in the sense of ecclesiastical authorisation of the canon, as if on the part of synods or councils making a Scripture to have been written by an apostle or an “apostolic man.’? But “the testimony of the Church ” ? is in this relation of the very greatest value, as evidence in a process of proof. It is thus of great value even in the form of that judicial jinding (not making) on the part of Church Courts at the opening of the fourth century, were it only because they were so much nearer the apostolic age than we are, so that they may have possessed materials for judgment that are not now extant— eg., that are not collected by Eusebius‘ in his inestimably precious notes on the New Testament books. But of greater dogmatical value by far is what is presupposed in that finding, —not dogmatical but historical,—namely, the fact, which now can be historically established quite independently of that find- ing, that these books were held as apostolic in the Christian community as far back as the literary history of Christianity could be traced at the opening of the fourth century. That ascertainment of fact, as to the pre-existing judgment of the Christian community, was the real nature of the process which resulted in a judicial finding of Church Courts, can be seen, ¢.g.,in Eusebius’s manner of dealing with questions about apostolicity of books; by employment of such evidence as this or that early father’s “using” a given book, he deals with the questions, mainly or,ground of second century external evidence, just as they are dealt with by real masters of historical criticism, relatively to the canon at the present day. And the fact thus appearing, that “the testimony of the Church” regarding the canon is primarily and funda- mentally constituted by the action of the whole Christian community in holding the books as apostolic, from the earliest 1 See below, pp. 129, etc. 2 Cp. the French political decreeing that there is no God. 5 Westminster Confession, i. 5. * Keclesiastical History, circa A.D. 325. AS TO THE CANON. 125 time that can be traced, very greatly enhances the evidential value even of relative findings of Church Courts and “dogmas” of Church Councils; while in itself that action of the whole community is far weightier as historical evidence than such findings or dogmas ever can be. An exercise of gudgment on the part of the Christian com- munity, as involved in its action of so holding the books, is made inevitable by the nature of the case. To the ordinary English reader of Hamlet or of the Paradise Lost, the question of authorship is essentially of no importance, like the question of the authorship of the multiplication-table. But to a Christian, the question of apostolicity of a Scripture is! vitally important, as touching the very foundation of a Christian life of faith, On that question we all are now in reality exercising a lifelong continuity of judgment, in our habitually “using” certain books in the old (Eusebian) sense of holding them as the Scriptures, “the Books.” 2 And in the primitive time, say, in the second century, before the recogni- tion of a whole collective canon had become a definitively settled habit of the community of Christians, while attempts were being made to tamper with genuine Scriptures,’ or to foist non-apostolic Scriptures on the Church, the exercise of judgment on the part of private Christians, with their elders and Christian ministers, would no doubt in many cases be earnestly real. On the part of Church fathers of that time it comes into view as lovingly and reverently earnest in learned Ireneus, and trenchantly keen in Tertullian’s defences of the faith against the “grievous wolves,” now rising from within the Church. Even the biblical criticism (in our new sense) of such as Clement of Alexandria, was only a scholarly applica- tion of a principle of judgment ® that had lived in the heart and mind of the community of Christians from the beginning. Thus when the Roman Clement ® writes to the Corinthians, probably before the death of John, they are aware of a specific difference between Paul's writing to them and Clement’s ; 1 See above, pp. 80, etc. 2 Biblia—our “ Bible ”—is plural. 3 As to Marcion’s Gospel, see below, p. 129. * As to apocryphal books, see below, p. 134. 5 English for criticism. ® See below, p. 134. 126 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. and! the Philippians know the same difference between Paul’s writing to them and Polycarp’s, when they receive a letter from this father, probably not ten years after John’s death. 2 The Christian “use” of Scriptures, from the earliest traceable time, has an evidential value over and above what is necessarily folded in a deliberate judgment of the commun- ity. It is very important as bearing on the ¢eatual criticism of the Scriptures,—that is, on the question, What were the words of a book as it came from the author’s pen, or (¢g. in the case of minstrelsy at first unwritten) the author’s brain ? But it also constitutes corroborative evidence of genuineness of a book, by showing that the judgment of the community regarding its authorship has not been formed without intimate and appreciative knowledge of ats contents. We saw2 how, through personal appreciative acquaintance with a man, one may come to have an all but instinctive sure- ness of knowledge of him; so that sometimes in a question of personal identity the best of all witnesses is a child. We thus can perceive that Paul’s highest estimate? of the “critical” discernment of ordinary Christians may be applic- able even to questions of what is called “ biblical criticism ” in the Christian schools of learning. The Christian name for “scholarship” is discipleship And in the question, Is this or that book the work of a “holy man of God” who wrote “as he was moved by the Holy Ghost”? the spiritual instinct of a true disciple, who, like the Master, “never learned ” in the high schools, may, even for the purpose of a strictly historical literary judgment, be a better witness (see Luke xviii. 9-14) than a worldly-minded, professional scholar or “ scribe,” perhaps inflated with pharisaism of Jearning into “ despising others,” and saying in his heart, “ This people, which knoweth not the law, is cursed.” An Ayrshire ploughman may be better qualified than a German professor to judge as to a poem ascribed to Burns. 1 See below, p. 134. 2 See above, p. 47. 8 1 Cor. ii. 15, where the Greek for “judge” is criticise. 4 Matt. xi. 29, where “learn of me” is=become my disciple; at Matt. xxviii. 29, “teach” them is=make them disczples. AS TO THE CANON. 127 But at present we need not distinguish between the two classes, of learned and unlearned. In the times at present in our view, gentle and simple were, in relation to our present matter, of one heart and one mind. The “use” of Scripture by learned Irenzeus, and the “use” of it by the commonalty of confessors and martyrs at his own Lyons and Vienne! were “forces not conflicting but conspiring.” And the hold- ing of the books as apostolic, on the part of a whole com- munity that lied on “the Scriptures” in a manner and measure probably without parallel in history, has a great value as evidence beyond the measure of their merely “ critical”? acumen.? Norte (supplementary to the above) regarding “use.”—It was stated some time ago in a London periodical that the Scottish people, eager students, in last century literally read out of exrstence, with tear and wear of (horny-handed) use, a class of printed books that were popular among them. There is evidence of there having been such eager study of the New Testament books in the second century. One of the most precious MSS. extant (the Codex Sinaiticus) was in our own day on its way to destruction among a heap of old papers or parchments, when it was discovered and rescued by Tischendorf. Considering the comparative costliness of books then, and the paucity of readers before the invention of printing, the number of now extant MSS. of the New Testament, in whole or in part, is really large. The Sinaiticus, of the fourth century, was written as it were in the red light of the Diocletian persecution of the books. And the now extant MSS., belonging as they do to a variety of types (“ recensions”), thus bear witness to the existence, long before the close of the third century, of a wide- spread eager “use” of earlier copies. For proof of the exrstence of a book at an early date, there is no need of any great cloud of MS. witnesses. The Septuagint translation would alone be proof of the existence of our Hebrew Bible two centuries B.c. And the Peschito Syriac version 3 would alone suffice to prove the existence of nearly our whole New Testament as early, say, as the middle of the second century, within a lifetime of the apostolic age. One manu- * As to their famous letter— about the great persecution they had suffered—supposed to have been written by him, circa a.p. 177, see below, p. 137. * There was hardly anything between them and the apostolic age. 5 See below, p. 131. 128 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. script of a work might suffice, though it should be of uncertain date. For certain long-lost books of Tacitus there is only one MS. voucher, discovered since the invention of printing. Cicero’s De Republicd! is known to us only from a palimpsest.” There is for the Roman History of Paterculus only one MS. copy, a bad one, which may have been written centuries after the author’s death. There is only one copy of the work on the Athenian Constitution which in ancient times was sup- posed to be Aristotle’s: a copy which, assigned by experts to the first or second century of our era, was discovered a few months ago in the British Museum. It is seen to have been “used,” not for eager study of Aristotle, but for the con- venience of an Egyptian land-steward, who wrote his business memoranda on the blank sides of its leaves. We may be sure that a more spiritual “use” was made of the Apology of Aristides, who laid it (while Quadratus laid another) before the Roman Emperor Adrian (at Athens, circa A.D. 130). These were the earliest of Christian Apologies now known about in history. Some fragments of Quadratus’ work ‘are preserved in Eusebius? But that of Aristides was com- pletely lost from the fourth century down to this last year. It has been recovered in a Syriac translation. And now, strangely, it is found that for substance the Greek original was before the reading public without men’s knowing it—in the form of a discourse that is put into a speaker’s mouth in a sort of romance in the Greek tongue. The late Bishop Lightfoot, whom we suppose to have been the greatest modern master of second century Christian scholarship, had (without knowing it) lying beside him for years the “lost” Diatessaron of Tatian,* in a language which he had not leisure to study so as to be able to make himself acquainted with the contents of the mysterious volume containing it. Christian books might be read out of existence. (This supplementary note may be excused as illustrating the Christian “use” of Scriptures by contrast. It also goes to show that the primitive Christians, eagerly thirsting for “the Scriptures,” presumably were not much exposed to the distraction of secular literature pressing itself on their attention, as having a claim on the time and vital force of him who will keep “abreast of the age.”® In fine (“honesty ’s the best policy”), 1 Cardinal Mai’s ed., A.D. 1826. 2A copy which, originally written on vellum, had been smeared over into invisibility, to make room for a work of Augustine in the vacated pages. 3 Hist. Eccles. 4See below, p. 194. 5“ Whither?” ep. Eph. ii. 2. AS TO THE CANON. 129 the exercise is intended, with “a gentle art,’ at the present stage to detain the attention for a little in the region of the note, with side-light on our special subject.) 4. Heretical use of the Scriptures has a peculiar value as evidence bearing on the canon. The accusation (Tertullian) against the Gnostics of “corrupting” the Scriptures does not necessitate the view that those heretics forged Scripture, giving out their own writings as genuinely apostolic. In the very remarkable case of Marcion’s Gospel (circa a.D. 140), what is found in fact is a heretic making a genuine Gospel (Luke) the basis and main raw material of a Gospel adjusted to the heretical view, but not claiming to be really apostolic in authorship. Unbelievers not long ago founded an argument against our Luke’s claim to canonicity on the hypothesis,’ that Marcion’s Gospel was the true original— which would bring our Zuke down to later than a.p. 140. But more recently a searching analysis of Marcion’s work, as preserved in quotations from it by Tertullian (Against Marcion), has resulted in conclusive proof—in the ascertain- ment of which a main leading part was taken by an un- believing critic (Prov. xxviii. 10)—that our Luke is the true original, of which Marcion’s work is a rafficiamento (to serve as an evangel basis for Marcion’s one-sided Paulinism). Now, if at a.D. 140 Zuke had attained to such venerableness as to be ripe for that Medean cauldron-operation of heresy, then (1) this carries its authorship up into the apostolic age; (2) taking along with it Acts, whose authorship is evidently the same as Luke’s; while (3) there now remains no warranting reason for banishing the other New Testament Scriptures from that first century, seeing that Zuke places in the century that swpernaturalism which was the real reason for affirming his and those other Scriptures to be later forgeries. So, at one stroke,—with genuine Gospels, Acts, Epistles,—the whole fabric of theorising about forgery, far down in the second century, is destroyed (cp. Dan. ii. 35). Marcion’s preference for Luke in particular was presum- ably on account of its being the Pauline evangel: witness the fact that he made (heretical) “use”. of the whole collection of Pauline Epistles; which again is distinct proof 1 Greek for guess. 9 130 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. (1) that those Epistles, so known and honoured as Paul’s at A.D. 140, must have come down as Paul’s from the apostolic age, and (2) that discriminative collections of the Scriptures had begun to be made so early. Through the now remaining traces of one heretic, there thus is placed in the apostolic age a substantially complete New Testament Scripture; while as to the Johannine writings, the Pauline New Testament in the first century really demolishes the root reason for making them to be forgeries, namely, the “theory ” that first-cen- tury Christians did not believe in the Godhead of Christ. If they did not, could Paul have written these Epistles to them ? All this from the fragments of one heretic is an heritage due to the trenchant thoroughness of Tertullian in refuting him, and so providing for future defence of the Scriptures he defended in his own day. A similar effect 1s produced by the recent recovery of a long-lost work of his contemporary Hippolytus. It is in refutation of the heretics—through quotations from their own writings. And from these words of their own it appears, eg., that all the four Gospels were “used” by them, beginning a considerable time before the middle of the second century; that is to say, so early they owned the four Gospels as apostolic. But that is not all :— The history of those heretics, as coming into prominence of separate distinctness, and raising up @ separately distinct- ive literature, presupposes an earlier history, of a Christianity and a Christian opinion in relation to which the heretical movement was a parasitical after-growth. Thus! Basilides, a contemporary of Papias (say, A.D. 125), is said to have written twenty-four books on the Gospel ; and both he and Valentinus, a somewhat later contemporary (say, A.D. 140), made “use” of the Gospels, particularly John. Here, then, we see that if Marcion be serviceable for establishment of the canonicity of New Testament Scriptures, especially the Pauline, earlier heretics do like service, especially with reference to Johannine Scripture. No extant orthodox father before Theophilus of Antioch (Ad Autolycum), about A.D. 189, names John as author of a Gospel. But, we now learn, our fourth Gospel was in “use” of heretics half a century before that time,—in the lifetime of disciples of John in high 1Salmon, Books of the New Testament. AS TO THE CANON. TST standing, such as (probably) Papias and (certainly) Polycarp, who remained on earth until a.p. 155. The evidence re- garding John in particular is important at present, when the burning question about the Gospels hinges on the point of the genuineness or authenticity of the fourth. But of greater abiding importance is the evidence, in those heretical remains, of, more generally, the previous existence and the nature of a Christianity and a New Testament Scripture presupposed in the heretical movement. 5. Translations, quotations, allusions, colouring connected with the Scriptures, represent so many additional sources of evidence as to their authorship, beyond what is of necessity implied in “use” of them (of course those translations, etc., are so many proofs of “ use”). Of translations, the Peschito Syriac, including almost all the books on our New Testament canon, existed in the second century, and may have begun to come into piecemeal exist- ence in the first. The Old Latin (the basis of the Vulgate) was in places going out of date (witness Tertullian proposing emendations) at the close of the second century. Translation —tor general Christian use—implies that at the time of its being executed the original Scriptures were widely venerated in the Churches, as having come down from the apostles and their authorised associates. As “Greek” was their original form, and “ Hebrew,” as then read in the East, is no doubt represented by the Syriac sister-tongue, a Latin translation alone was needed in order (cp. Acts ii. 8, 11) to apostolic “declaration” through Scripture in all the three languages of the superscription on the cross: which would suffice for reaching in substance the then civilised “ world” (Luke ii. 1) far beyond the empire of Augustus Cesar. Suppose that we place the Peschito Syriac and the Old Latin translations— thus called for—at, say, AD. 150. Then there must have been alwe at the time, venerating these Scriptures as having come down from the apostles, many Christians who might well remember the Apostle John,—Polycarp, for instance, who had been John’s contemporary for at least thirty years,’ and yet 1At his martyrdom, a.p. 155, he said that he had “served Christ” eighty-six years. He may—but he may not—have been born a Christian. | alia}? THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. survived A.D. 150 for five years. Is it conceivable that these two translations should have been executed at that time, and accepted by the Semitic and the Latin nations of the world, if the originals had not come down, through fifty years, from the apostolic age ? Careful custody of the Scriptures in that period has a similar generality of relevancy for proof of the canon. Thus 1. As to the Muratoré fragment: It is a barbarous Latin translation, discovered A.D. 1740, of a sort of descriptive catalogue of the books held as apostolic, including almost all the books of our existing New Testament. It must originally have been in Greek, as early, it is deemed, as A.D. 160-180 (some would place it later, perhaps as many as twenty-five years). It may have been the work of private Christian scholarship, but more probably was prepared on behalf of some Church (the Roman ?). It shows that New Testa- ment Scripture collectively was at that time an object of thought—the germinant conception of a New Testament canon was effectively at work. This was as near to the ve- ceived date of John’s Gospel (whose name has disappeared from the “fragment,” obviously through accident of tear and wear) as we now are to the first appearance of the Waverley Novels and of The Edinburgh Review: while at that time of “orveat” persecutions, “the Scriptures ” were to that Church, amid her fiery trials (Rom. xv. 4), priceless “as heart’s blood to the stricken deer.” 2. The practice of individual fathers appearing incidentally +5 indicative of carefulness in custody of these Scripures.—(1) A remarkable illustration in Zertullian’s work Against Mar- cion has already been noted by us. Though he arose late in the second century, his apologetic and anti-heretical labours led him into keen study with reference to the preceding time, especially in its literary history, for which his Graeco-Roman culture (he wrote books in Greek as well as in Latin), along with his great force of intellect and professional training as a lawyer, gave him some peculiar qualifications. He speaks of apostolic autographs as being still to the fore, and preserved in due honour, at the places which originally received them. Though his sincerity is unquestionable, he is not a very good 1 Given, and carefully edited, by Westcott, On the Canon. AS TO THE CANON. lea witness regarding facts beyond his personal cognisance. But the general fact he represents thus graphically is variously attested otherwise, namely, the fact of careful custody of the Scriptures, especially in the communities first reached by them—e.g. at Philippi and at Corinth 1—a custody for which the Church from the outset was well qualified by her con- stitutional organisation (1 Tim. iii. 8, ete.; Tit. i. 5, 7; 1 Pet. v. 1). But the Church’s care of the treasures is most vividly apparent in Tertullian’s own passionate earnestness in guard- ing their integrity and purity. (2) Irenceus, his senior contemporary in Gaul,’ is the earhest father whose extant writing (circa A.D. 180) is distinctively exegetical in its character. He (so far as we know) inaugu- rates the custom of distinctly specifying (with author’s name) the book of the New Testament he refers to; and in so doing he incidentally enables us to see that his New Testament Scripture is substantially the same as ours. Finally, he loves to look back on the young days when he sat at Polycarp’s feet in Asia Minor; and has a salutary remembrance of the carefulness relatively to the Scriptures that was characteristic of “the elders ”—that is, the worthies of that older genera- tion, Polycarp’s contemporaries, who must as a class have survived the apostolic age. (3) Much earlier, Polycarp himself, writing to the Philip- pians (A.D. 108), speaks with profoundest reverence of the letter which they received from Paul; and (circa A.D. 96) a similar reference to writing which the Corinthians received from the great apostle is found in a letter (of which missing parts were recovered quite recently) to them from Clement of Rome, who (cp.. Phil. iv. 3) may have been personally acquainted with the Churches of that part of Greece * The possible value of quotations, not only for correctness of text, but for proof of the canon, is illustrated by the state- ment that Augustine alone has a larger amount of quotation from the New Testament than there is of quotation from all the Latin Classics in all the extant books written before the invention of printing. Returning to the second century, we find Irenzus, who, through Polycarp, was of the school 1 See below, p. 134. 2 See below, p. 149. 3 See further as to those fathers, Survey of the Period, pp. 146, ete. 134 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. of John, credited with no fewer than—in his one not very large work (On Heresies) —two hundred distinct references to the Pauline Epistles. In the four or five printed pages of Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians, the four theological chapters of 1 Peter—-not named—are distinctly (though perhaps unconsciously) reproduced at no fewer than eleven places (eg. the wonderful sentence at 1 Pet. i. 8 is here verbatim); and the letter as a whole reads as if the Epistle had come to form the framework of Polycarp’s mind as well as the life-blood in his Christian heart. The Roman Clement, in his letter to the Corinthians (the 1st—the 2nd is spurious) is similarly possessed with Hebrews, though not to the same astonishing extent. Colouring, as distinguished from clearly recognisable allu- sion to a particular place or reproduction of it, is perhaps the best description of the kind of evidence relatively to the canon that is distinctive of the few and small extant remains of that earliest Patristic period of “ the apostolic fathers,’—that is, fathers who were contemporaries of apostles; of which, perhaps, the finest sample is the anonymous Letter to Diog- netus. “The Scriptures,” with the apostles themselves, meant the Old Testament... And the Old Testament, in a manner and measure not paralleled in later times, appears to have constituted the “ Bible-reading” of Christians until the echoes of the living voices of apostles had ceased to linger in their heart, and there came to rise—in consequence of threatening heresies—a need of production of distinct and express apostolic authority, in the writings which (2 Pet. i, 12-15) were avail- able in place of those living voices. At the earlier period, the apostolic Scriptures’ may have been kept a retentis for posterity rather than put in place of the remembered personal instructions of the throned witnesses. In any case, what we see in the extant remains of the earliest sub-apostolic Christi- anity is distinctively colouring ; but it is a colouring as of new creation by that same word, then working in men’s hearts (2 Cor, iii. 3), which is treasured in the Scriptures now in our hands, Note on the Apocrypha.2—They never were received in the Church as canonical. They began to appear in the second 1 See a transition to an inchoate New at 2 Pet. iti. 15, 16. Greek for hidden or secret—here as to origin. AS TO THE CANON. Tok century, and may throw some side-light of illustration on its obscure side-paths. There is a recorded case of one Church’s “using” one of them for some time in public worship, under a mistaken impression of its character, perhaps occasioned by its bearing the name of Peter; as if now a very simple congrega- tion in a back-settlement should “use” Thomas Guthrie’s Gospel in Ezekiel, under an impression of its being a Gospel according to the Apostle Thomas. Marcion’s+ is a real case of substituting a factitious Gospel for the genuine Evangels (not of apocryphal writing, nor of forgery). It does not appear that he pretended that his Gospel was apostolic in its authorship, or made a secret of its being of his own concoction. The Apocrypha we do not know to have had, as a class, any intention seriously at variance with the Gospel. Thus far they appear to have been foolish rather than formidable. Such of them as have reached us are, on the face of them, poor and weak imitations of the canonical writings. But they may have had in them something of the venomousness which Paul saw in old-womanish fables (1 Tim. iv. 7). At least they may have been unwholesome, as minis- tering to a morbid curiosity about matters which those writings leave in the shade—e.. the child-life of Jesus, and the private history of Mary and Joseph. Otherwise, they may have been serviceable—good coming out of evil—through awakening the Church to a greater fulness of appreciation of the incomparable excellence of the genuine apostolic Scriptures, and training her into a pointed discrimination between apostolic Scriptures and other writings,—which is represented by the Irenzan practice of naming the Scriptures or the human writers of them: a practice nearly simultaneous in first appearance with apo- cryphal writings. Tus CANON THUS ASCERTAINED.—At the close of the second century, the matter stood as follows in the mind of the Christian community :2—-ALL OUR EXISTING SCRIPTURES, AND ONLY THESE, WERE HELD AS GENUINELY APOSTOLIC. But there was a difference in the manner of the reception of them.—1. AS UNQUESTIONABLE, there were held (1) The four Gospels, which collectively might be spoken of as “The Gospel” (evangel); (2) The tharteen Epistles bearing Paul's name, along with Hebrews ; and (3) 1 Peter and 1 John. With reference to Hebrews, there was no question as to genuine apostolicity ; but there was (and there always has been) a question as to its individual authorship—Was Paul the 1 Above, p. 129. 2 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Book III. chap. xxv. 136 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. writer of it? Or was it some Pauline man? 2. THE RE- MAINING SCRIPTURES, namely, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, and The Apocalypse, were known as Antilegomena, because, with reference to them, there was some cloud or shade of hesitation of the judgment, doubt, or question, though not such as to prevent their being received as genuine apostolic. NOoteE on “ antilegomenon.”—It natively means disputed, chal- lenged, called in question. But it seems impossible to make out with warrantable confidence what precisely was the sense in which it was originally employed in the present connection, if indeed in the present connection it was employed persistently in any one definite sense. Eusebius, who, in his famous passage on this subject (#. #. i. 25), has occasioned among scholars much discussion as to what precisely he meant by the expression, seems to have varied in his employment of it through being in some measure under influence of conflicting views of the subject in various relations to particular books—e.g. with reference to The Apocalypse. We will begin with making antilegomenon to mean at least a shade or cloud, as “unclassed” or “nondescript”: since the seven Scriptures it refers to are excluded from the above category of wnquestionable Scriptures. And this again implies the more specific meaning of, either “called in question” in some way, or “challenged” on some account, or “ doubted” in some respect. But which of these shades of more specific significance the expression has, in this or that case, is to be learned in connection with the particular nature of the case. In the case of The Apocalypse; we become aware that the question, or challenge, or doubt was not necessarily with reference to genuine apostolicity. For at the outset there was doubt or question with reference to that book among Christians who had no doubt of its apostolicity.1 And in addition to the evidence of its apostolicity that is constituted by its hold- ing its ground as apostolic Scripture at the close of the second ? In our own day this book, which at one time seemed “everywhere spoken against,” has been taken into special favour as unquestionably genuine by unbelieving critics, who imagine that the supposition of its genuineness will help them to make John a Judaising false prophet. Baur made The Apocalypse to be genuine in order to place the original apostolate in opposition to Paul. AS TO THE CANON. 137 century, it had in its favour (as compared with the other antilegomena) peculiar strength of the kind of evidence that is constituted by distinctly traceable “use” of a Scripture in the course of that century: in particular, use of it by Justin Martyr, by Irenzeus, and by the Lyonnese confessors and martyrs. But in influential quarters it was regarded with uneasiness on account of the apprehended tendency of its millennial utterances (whence it was kept out of use in the public church readings of Scripture); and its being thus under a cloud might tend to awaken doubt in some minds with reference to its apostolic authorship. As to the five minor Epistles—2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, and Jude. These were not addressed to particular Churches nor to individuals by name. The traces of “use” of them in course of the second century are few and indistinct. And at the close of the century there was a haze of obscurity on the question what precisely to think of them, or what might be the whole truth regarding them, in respect of individual authorship or otherwise. But they were there, held somehow vn the bosom of the community of believers as an inheritance from the apostolic age. And, while (see Matt. xxviii. 17) “some doubted,” they retained their place as apostolic Scriptures in the prevalent judgment of the Church. So the matter has remarned to the present day. There always has been, there now is, with reference to the five minor Epistles, a haze on the question as to what may be the whole truth regarding them— ¢.g. as to individual authorship; and nevertheless, as anciently so now, they are held as apostolic Scriptures in the prevalent judgment of the Church.’ The minor Epistles are now bound up in every copy of the New Testament. But at the close of the second century the very name of “Testament” (or “Instrument ”—Tertullian) was only beginning to be in use. In the course of the century, the largest collection in possession of an ordinary Christian might be only that of the Pauline Epistles and Acts. And, while no doubt the foremost ambition might be to possess a copy of all the four Gospels, perhaps not many were 1 In their Letter, see above, p. 127. 2 A special exercise on one of them—2 Peter—is appended below pp. 188 ff. 138 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. so much as the happy possessors of one Gospel! Further, while of the seven “Catholic” Epistles 1 Peter and 1 John are Scriptures of the first class, the five antilegomena are essentially “minor” Epistles. In their nature they are much less important than those two, and than Paul’s great theolo- gical Epistles, and than Hebrews. They would not be sought after as these would be on account of their teaching; their teaching being occupied with practical applications of religious commonplace, while those other Epistles have expositions of distinctively Christian doctrine. Yet further, as they were not addressed to particular Churches, so no local community had in relation to them that interest of honourable pride which, ¢g., the powerful Churches of Ephesus and Rome had in giving wide publicity to apostolic Epistles addressed to themselves. Finally, these minor Epistles were not in- cluded in the public church readings, which embraced only the greater Scriptures. Hence, though it should be possible for a Tertullian to find proof of the genuineness of these Epistles in rare manuscripts and recondite church records, on the other hand there might be good Christian scholars by whom this or that one of them had never been seen, and good Christians by whom it had never been heard of. APPENDIX on the genuineness of 2 Peter.—This Epistle is the one of the antilegomena in connection with which the shade of doubt is gravest. And it suits our present purpose to pause here for a little in order to note, in this as a sample,” what sort of case there may be on behalf of those minor Scriptures, although the particular things to be said in this one of the cases are mainly peculiar to this case. 1. There is in it some “ speech-bewraying ” use of words (Matt. xxvi. 73): eg.3 in connection with the Transfiguration history, 1The four Gospels are now to be had, beautifully printed, for 1d.! In the South Sea Islands young female converts have worked literally “ tooth and nail” to be able to purchase a copy of the four in their own tongue. By means of the bark of a tree, on which they had to employ their teeth, they made a sort of cloth, for which they obtained money wherewath to Z buy ” this “ wisdom” of God (Prov. xxiii. 23). * 2 Peter is copiously employed as illustrative sample of the Christian position relatively to the canon in Isaac Taylor’s Restoration of Belief. ° In addition to the suggestive similarities of rare speech common to 2 Peter with 1 Peter, pointed at in the earlier part of sec. 3, Essay III. ° AS TO THE CANON. 139 there is here (2 Pet.i. 12-15) the peculiar use of the Greek Exodus (for “ decease”), which elsewhere occurs only in the Gospel narrative of the occurrence (Luke ix. 31); and a harp- ing on the words tabernacle (and remembrance), which might be natural in one, so strongly sensitive as Peter was, now remember- ing that occasion (Mark ix. 5, 6). 2. The subject of the Epistle, warning against wolves (cp. Acts xx. 28-30, and 2 Tim. iv. 1-4), becomes “ the shepherd apostle” (Luke xxii. 32; cp. 1 Pet. v. 10, 12), who may have heard sad news from faithful Silas (1 Pet. 5.12; cp. 1 Cor. 1 10) delivering the first Epistle (2 Pet. ui. 1); and it might well come in as a postscript to the grand apostolic testi- mony (=a Petrine Lphesians; cp. 2 Pet. 1. 15, 16, and Col. 1. 10 + Philem. 24 + 1 Pet. v. 13), as John’s great Epistle is—according to Bishop Lightfoot—a postscript to his Gospel. 3. The writer's profession to be the Apostle Peter (2 Pet. 1.1): a profession carried out in details—(1) by reference, 111. 1, to one former Epistle of the writer; (2) by his claiming, 1. 16-18, to be one of those who were present at the Transfiguration ; and (3) by an aspect toward Paul, ui. 15, 16, of familiar equality, almost of patronage, which in the then state of things might not misbecome the prince apostle of the circum- cision, but which would be ridiculously offensive presumption on the part of one who was not an apostle. 4, The manner in the Epistle is fully in that “scriptural style”—of inimitable, authoritative, tender sanctity—which by scholarly critics is recognised as a hall-mark of genuine Scripture; and which, if the Epistle be not genuinely Peter’s, denotes a last extreme of impudence in forgery, infamy in fraud. 5. Harly reception—tThe Epistle, in the knowledge of what- ever discrediting circumstances could be known, was neverthe- less, at the close of the second century, held in the bosom of the Christian community as genuinely apostolic: eg. in the five regions (1 Pet. i. 1), in one of which Polycarp, at the feet of John, committed 1 Peter so utterly to heart? How could a forged 2 Peter come to be a received Scripture A.D. 199 ? 6. Against the supposition of its genuineness, the absence of references to it in the second century is not conclusive. That can be accounted for? on the supposition of its genuineness. Observe, e.g. the comparative infrequency of references to it among Christians now, notwithstanding its being in every one’s hands as a canonical Scripture. 1 See above, p. 184. * See above, p. 138. 140 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. But now let us suppose that all these five minor Epistles were simply destroyed from the knowledge of mankind, as if they had never existed. That loss of precious sacred literature would make no perceptible difference as regards—what is the apologetic interest involved in canonicity—our scriptural means of knowing the primeval nature and history of Chris- tianity. All of that knowledge that any one can deem of the least material importance is contained in Scriptures—* un- questionable ”—regarding whose genuine apostolic authorship there was no doubt, nor shadow of doubt—the four Gospels, the thirteen Pauline Epistles, and Hebrews, with Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John —and, we may really add, Revelation. In other words, as to the main body of our existing New Testament Scriptures, there was no question or hesitation; if we will believe the whole Christian Church at the close of the second century, these Scriptures are “unquestionably” genuine writings of apostles and their authorised associates.’ 2. The alternative—FORGERY of the main body of these Scriptures. The Tiibingen school has “left a name at which the world grew pale, to point a moral or adorn a tale.” It “went up like a rocket, and came down like a stick”: so that the grand master, Baur himself, has to be regarded as having been only a terribly clever schoolmaster, with a vast amount of book-learning and no “sense.” And in consideration of the possibility of other such fireworks (Matt. xxiv. 24) doing ruinous mischief while making men “stare and gasp” at their wonders, it may be well to keep up the memory of the great Tiibingen fiasco, through employing it for illustration of genuine criticism by contrast,—as the skins of defunct birds of prey are nailed up for a terror to intending evil-doers of their kind. And it is well to remember that the forgery- theory of Baur was only an endeavour to explain, what 1 The “associates” would be authorised by apostles (cp. Acts xv. 388 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11),j}who themselves were accredited by miracle. The “son,” with reference to Mark (1 Pet. v. 13), and to Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. i.; 2 Tim. i; Tit. i.), may mark a junior associate as having been formed under the apostle. AS TO THE CANON. 141 every one who thinks about the present subject must hold as a fact—if he do not own the Scriptures of the received New Testament canon as genuinely apostolic in their authorship, If they be not so, they must be forgeries, of date no later than, say, A.D. 160, the work of men putting on a false face as being apostolic writers, and so concealing a rotten heart of infamous falsehood in the name of God. There is no escaping that alternative dilemma. Strauss, holding that miracle is impossible, consequently (Matt. xiii. 12) went on to find that the gospel history with its wonders is false and fabulous. Whereupon his master, Baur, perceiving that on this view the Scriptures have to be accounted for as not apostolic, consequently framed a theory to explain how they could originate in forgery. And his ex- planation of the law or theory! of the way and manner in which mean villainy of forgery could produce the shining wonders (speciosa miracula—Horace) of these holy beautiful books,—hbefore, say, A.D. 160,—is the only serious attempt that has been made on the part of learned unbelief to explain the fact of the ewistence of the books, such as they “ unques- tionably ” were at that date, and now are. That explanation, theory, or vision of the way and manner is now generally recognised as a failure among men truthfully professing relative scholarship; although there are wandering echoes of the theorising, it may be on the part of men who know not what they say or whereof they affirm, perhaps in vain ambitious imitation of a voice that long has been silent and gone, where it once was a power. But, though that theory, or attempted explanation of the fact, is thus abandoned as no longer tenable in the existing light of historical knowledge, and at the bar of sound literary judgment, still the fact has to be maintained that this literature, ostensibly primeval apostolic in its authorship, really is in substance a tissue of forgeries, if it be not admitted that, as has been believed by the generality of Christians in all ages and nations from the second century downwards, it was the work of honest men, apostles and their associates, in the first century. King Agrippa, belicvest thou the prophets? It is useless for a man to say—to himself or others—that he disowns the Tiibingen ex- 1 Greek for view or vision. 142 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. planation of the supposed fact of forgery, if he do not believe in the opposed fact of the genuinely apostolic authorship of those Scriptures. It may be worse than useless—a way of saying Yes and No, “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds,” where “he that is not with us scattereth abroad.” It is easy to say forgery: magpies are heard repeating it in every grove. And when one forgery “theory” has been weighed in the balance and found wanting, it may not be difficult to imagine “another of the same”; if only, along with some general knowledge of the subject, a man have affluence of creative imagination, with poverty of controlling regulative judgment or “sense ”—as in Plato’s vision of lost manhood the passions are wild horses on a hillside, and the only governing power is a child that holds the reins. It may appear that in our time the reins have somehow been flung wildly away. Ina recent estimate of the number of “ theories ” for explaining away the scriptural “foundation of the apostles and of the prophets” (Eph. i. 20), the total number is given as 747, of which 144 have reference to the New Testament Scriptures. The 30,000 idols worshipped at Athens were 30,000 witnesses for the one true living God, who to the Athenians was “unknown.” Some of those who find that there are so many “theories” to pick and choose among may be moved by their multitude to continued steadfastness of adherence to that one thing which the mul- titude all combine in opposing (1 Pet. 1. 24, 25). And in that multitudinousness of united opposition (Ps. xlvi. 1—5) —concordia diseors—of theories at war among themselves, it is well to observe the proof it offers, that the “ criticism ” which makes the Bible untrue is not one thing, hke the Newtonian astronomy, but a multitude of discordant things combining to this one effect: as Herod and Pilate (Luke xxiii, 12) “were made friends together the same day” on which they combined in afflicting God’s true Word Incarnate.! The supposed fact of forgery, aS originating the creative word of the true civilisation of the world (Isa. xxxv. 1), as well as of a visible new creation in the Church, is what we 1 Real “ criticism” =judgment, has not necessarily anything to do with scepticism. AS TO THE CANON, 143 now have to contemplate. And in the great human (and superhuman) interest of “the present truth” as affected by it, it is important for us that we should steadily think about that supposed fact, reflecting on the significance of the sup- position, endeavouring to see, to picture to ourselves, what sort of thing it is that, in the shape of one or more of twelve times twelve “ theories,’ we may be tempted to “ first endure, then pity, then embrace” (Jas. 1.15; cp. Mark iv. 28), For instance, What sort of man was that second century forger, who has played so great a part in the historical criticism of Christianity within our own generation? What, individual- ising him, may we suppose to have been his principles, pur- pose, personal character of mind and heart ? This question we find it far from easy to answer, so as to frame any such picture of the forger, as, eg., we endeavoured to form of Justin Martyr the believer, and of David Hume the sceptic. Perhaps it has not been duly observed that the Tiibingen vision of the forger, who created the new-creative literature, is faulty from an artistic point of view, on this account that it does not hang together, even as a marionnette —which was the less excusable in a work of pure imagina- tion—as it now is found to have been by scholars. For instance, creation, origination out of nothing, the outstanding great achievement of the Tiibingen forger, is a flat contradic- tion of the whole Tiibingen criticism in its foundation principle, namely, the Hegelian metaphysical principle of “absolute continuity,’ that in history there shall be no creation, no true beginning, such as would be constituted by any really free act of will, And then, the forger himself: Who began him? Did Baur—as now is generally believed among scholars—create him out of nothing? Then that grand master of “criticism,’ in this his great outstanding achievement, was himself a contradiction of the criticism, “from turret to foundation-stone.” But, for argument’s sake, let us suppose the forger not to have been eternal in his productive activity, but in the second century to have some- how begun. Still, upon any view of his career, we see that fatal flaw of incoherence, not to say absurdity; we are made to feel a great if not insuperable difficulty in conceiv- ing, upon any theory or no theory, what sort of being this 144 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. forger must have been; what sort of thing real forgery in this case must have been. ‘ Real view of the forger—Of course he was not a German theologian of our time. He must have lived in the second century, and there completed his wondrous work of creating the new-creative literature of falsehood and fables, and getting all the Christendom, of that first heroic age of martyrdom for truth, to believe the whole system of his lies, not perceiving the imposture. And to say that humility must have clothed him as a garment would be far to understate the fact. It must have concealed him as a coat of darkness—more wonderful than any miracle in all his forged books. He lived unknown. He worked unseen. He was noteven heard of. As for Moses, though his face was veiled, his veil was seen, and his presence and working were well known in his own and following generations. But this forger was so utterly perfect in his self- effacement that he never was so much as dreamed about by any one, until, twenty generations after his work was done, and the world of its new creation was waxing old, at the long last he was “dragged into fame,” as if created out of nothing, by the head-master of a school, “calling” that “spirit from the vasty deep” of seeming non-existence, for the purpose of crowning the labour, and perhaps rivalling the renown of a pupil, who had become famous through production of a borrowed mythic theory of the life of Jesus, by producing an original forgery theory of New Testament Scripture. More astonishing than even that humility of the forger must have been his futility. The creator of that new - creative literature, the least of whose world of fictions—e.g. its Philemon —as a work of realistic imagination far transcends the measure of other poets, must have been endowed with a transcendent ability, such as in an honest calling would have placed the whole world at his feet: witness the amazing success of even his imposture among the Christians of his own day and all following ages. And all that affluence of power, in the great opportunity of human life on earth in time, he threw away upon nothing, and far worse,—in utter obscurity, expending all in the production of what was utterly uncalled for. There was no call whatever for a second century forger to create the New Testament Scriptures out of nothing but lies) The New Testament Scriptures were already in existence, as an heritage from the first century, the work of apostles and their associates there, “not following cunningly devised fables,” but “ declaring unto us what they had seen and AS TO THE CANON. 145 heard, that our fellowship might be with them.” This, we have seen, is matter of plain historical fact. About the moral character of that forger, what shall we say ? Not merely was he a liar in the name of God, with a false face of religion the most holy, hiding a rotten heart of untruthfulness most vile; not only was he a murderer, not of the body only but of the soul, poisoning the public fountains of the truth which is the soul’s life,—assassin-like in stealthiness, mis- leading multitudes of simple innocent enthusiasts into that ruin :—all this he was without any conceivable motive, unless he was a very devi! (John viii. 44), delighting in lies as means of murder, not abiding in the truth because there was no truth wm him. And beyond, and far above the difficulty in conceiv- ing such a human image of Satan, there is the difficulty in comprehending what can have moved him and sustained him in working for his purposes in this particular way so abhorrent and revolting to whatever is false in heart, namely, in the production of holy books, confessedly the most beautiful in holiness the world has ever seen,—such that the very savour and fragrance of them is felt as heavenly; and even literary criticism will speak of “the scriptural style,” of inimitable, authoritative, tender sanctity, of which the like has never appeared in any writing outside of Scripture, not even in those of the holiest of the men who appear to have had most in them of the spirit of the Scriptures. A forger is a liar of the basest kind. The idealised second century forger is a sort of com- bination of the impenitent thief and—in a nefarious, restless ubiquitarianism—say, the Wandering Jew. What conceivable wterest could there be for such a moral being as that produc- tion in such a career—a career made possible for him only through close personal connection with a religion of holiness and truth, to be connected with which was to be in the con- dition described by its apostle, “If in this world only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable ” ? That is to say, the forger in this case is “ unthinkable.” The suggestion of forgery in the authorship of these books is essentially a thoughtless thing. And the only alternative is, apostolic authorship. Some such exercise as we now have been engaged in may help us toward realising what is really involved in a supposed forgery of these books, so that, in our thought and speech about this foundation matter, we may not be as men “ beating the air.” In this case, the action must have been, not vaguely of the community, but distinctly of individuals who knew perfectly well what they were doing. The 10 146 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. mythic theory proceeded on a well-known fact, namely, that sn certain conditions of society, tales and fables may grow Up, and come to be believed, without any distinctly conscious creative action of individuals for a purpose. A forgery theory can have no such ground to go upon. Books do not write themselves in a day-dream as of unreflecting infancy ; least of all such books as those now in question. If these books be not what they profess to be, they are the work of deliberate falsehood and fraud, of most infamous imposture, for the purpose of deceiving mankind about Christ and the apostles, about God and the unseen eternal world. And, while the crime can have been perpetrated only through deliberate action of individuals consummately able, the whole Church of that period must have been art and part in the infamous criminality—that is, the period immediately follow- ing the apostolic age. The books, if the whole Church of that period had not been a consenting witness in the reception of them, could no more have attained to the place they held at the close of the second century than a shower of fire-sparks could set the ocean on fire. And the Church of that period “of the persecutions ” was precisely —more conspicuously than any other community the world has ever seen—the community of men who would rather die than lie. In relation to truth of God, the Christian community was in this respect in the acmé of that condition of heroic youthful vigour that 1s pictured by John, at 1 John ii. 13, where we seem to see Apollo fresh from victory over the python, with the light of recent battle on his brow, and his foot on the serpent slain. Ts that a forger of New Testament Scriptures ? SURVEY OF THE PERIOD.—Zhe amount of ostensibly apos- tolic literature thus in existence at the close of the first century was, as appearing in the canon when formed, what might be deemed surprisingly small. . The apostolic age extended over two periods, each of about thirty-three years’ duration, and both characterised by great fulness of mental activity, of a kind that naturally seeks expression in literary publication. The leaders—Peter and Paul in the first period, and John in the second—were well able to write, as occasion might call for writing ; as also were “ apostolic men ” associated AS TO THE CANON. 147 with them; witness the actual writing of Mark and Luke of the Petro-Pauline period, and Clement, Polycarp, and other apostolic fathers of the Johannine. And they all knew from the parallel case of the Old Testament, and could understand from the nature of the things, how greatly important, for widespread and abiding prosperity of a spiritual movement, would be a record of its origination and first proclamation of principles: as the Socratic movement in philosophy—though Socrates himself, like Christ, did not write—nhas its record from the hands of Xenophon and Plato; and the Reformation movement will for Scotland have its history written by the fine Roman hand of Knox himself, while its principles are put on record ina multitude of creeds and confessions—to say nothing of whole libraries of history, and of systematic, pole- mical, and exegetical theology, from the hands of individual leaders and adherents of the cause. Yet in the greatest of all periods, the literary produce of two momentous generations does not contain so much writing as a literary amateur will now produce in one season for the amusement of one people. No doubt (John x. 30; Luke i. 1-4) the apostles and evangelists had a regard to the advantage, for fundamental abiding instruction to mankind, of having a few well-digested books rather than a confusingly or fatiguingly great miscellany of literature. Still, as the literary fruit of the movement which they headed, the amount of actual writing in our New Testament collection of Scriptures is astonishingly small. (The smallness of the amount of that writing is a presumptive proof of genuineness.) What in particular were the detailed processes by means of which the books were preserved, pure and entire, through a century of storms, and spread abroad in a Church that was coming to be coextensive with the world, can to us be only matter of reasonable conjecture. But the endeavour to form a reasonable conjecture may be profitable, as tending to familiarise our mind with the historical state of things that obtained in the history of transition from the apostolic age. In the earlier part of that transition, the Old Testament was, we observed, in large measure the “ Bible-reading ” of the new kingdom. But Justin Martyr (A.D. 150) speaks of congrega- tional reading of the Gospels as a settled ordinance; Papias 148 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. (A.D. 125) is habitually “ expounding ” a Scripture connected with the Lord’s ministry ; and—vwitness Trenseus—Polycarp and his contemporary “ elders,” in their reminiscences of oral instruction of apostles, carefully conform to “the Scriptures,” while Polycarp unconsciously shows us that he has 1 Peter completely in his heart’s memory. We will begin our survey at the close of the second century, and thence move upwards. 1. At the close of the century there are two fathers, of whom copious writings have reached us, who may be regarded as illustrative samples of the Church’s capacity of judging as to the claim of a Scripture to have come down from the be- ginning of the century. Tertullian, in the Latin Church * was deeply persuaded of the vital importance of watching over the purity of apostolic Scriptures: witness the remarkable case of his handling the matter of Marcion’s Gospel. In the Greek Church his contemporary, Clement of Alexandria, was at the head of a Christian school, where his predecessor, Pantznus, had inaugurated what now is known as biblical criticism of the New Testament, and Origen, his successor, came to be, in that and other departments of scholarly Christian thought, one of the epoch-making leaders in the ancient time. Clement himself was no unmeet predecessor of this master, who, on account of his “indefatigable” pertinacity in great labours of study was surnamed Adamantius (“ indomitable”). It is needless to ask whether it would be possible for any forger to foist a spurious New Testament on a Church represented by two such leaders as Clement in the east and Tertullian in the west, who habitually “used” the new Scripture in the same spirit as the most orthodox of their present-day successors ? (No well-informed, unbelieving critic now thinks of making the New Scriptures of lower date than aD. 160 or 180; while more and more the unbelieving critics are placing the date as high as near the beginning of the century ; while some of these Scriptures are placed by them in the apostolic age.) This itself is proof of the apostolic authorship of the New Testament Scriptures as a class. Though all other external evidences had perished from the earth, their genuine apostolicity would be conclusively evidenced by the simple fact of their having been received as apostolic in that closing period of the —1See above, p. 132. AS TO THE CANON. 149 second century. In looking for traces of reception of the Scriptures further up in the century, let us not forget that here at the close of it there is, in our hand, what in any other case would be deemed thoroughly conclusive proof of the canon as now received. This appears to be sometimes more or less overlooked by sincere inquirers after truth in the matter. 2. In the third quarter of the century, we may place, as representative man, Jrenewus, whose great work On Heresies was written about A.D. 180. We have already + noted the specialty of his relation to the Scriptures. It now falls to be observed that, while he was perhaps the most learned Christian of his time, his long residence in the west, where he retained his early connection with the east, placed him advantageously for knowing the state and history of Christianity in the world as a whole. The late Bishop Lightfoot, probably the best judge in our time as to the point, reckoned the great work of Ireneus the most important source of information regarding sub-apostolic Christianity. This father was himself a devoted student of the new Scriptures as apostolic and divine ; and, while he gives no catalogue of them—having no occasion— it is evident from his quotations, allusions, colouring, that his New Testament must have been substantially the same as ours. For the following extract of a letter of his to an early friend, Florinus, then drifting away from the truth, we are indebted to the diligence of the Church historian Eusebius :— “TJ distinctly remember the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence ; for the lessons received in childhood, growing with the growth of the soul, become identi- fied with it, so that I can describe the very place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his antercourse with John, and WITH THE REST WHO HAD SEEN THE Lorp. AND WHATEVER HE HAD HEARD FROM THEM ABOUT THE LorpD, PoLYCARP, AS HAVING RECEIVED THEM FROM EYE-WITNESSES OF THE WORD OF LIFE, WOULD RELATE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SCRIPTURES.” ? The words we have marked for emphasis are a testimony of extraordinary value. They were written in circumstances 1 See above, p. 133. 2 Wace’s translation. The marks of emphasis are ours. 150 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. of intended publicity in connection with painful controversy, which must have put the writer on his guard against mis- statements as to simple fact; while, from the nature of the facts referred to, the truth as to the matter must have been well known, in connection with Polycarp, not only in Asia Minor, but in Western Christendom, by many men, both friends and foes, belonging to the generation of JIrenzus himself, and also to that older generation to which Polycarp belonged. Eusebius, nearly two centuries after, was surely — heaven-directed in transferring this beautiful picture to his historic page, on which we make the following notes :— IRENAN PICTURE of Polycarp (“sic sedebat ”).—Here we see, as in a living photograph, the whole vital process of that trans- mission, through which we are placed in a secured possession of the great heritage, of an authentic history of primeeval Christianity in its fountains, guaranteed by genuine apostolic record—(1) “THE ScRIPTURES,” in accordance with which Polycarp delivers all things, evidently are New Testament Seriptures, particularly of gospel history. (2) At this time, there perhaps is comparatively little reading of new Scriptures, though they are at hand as a check on oral tradition, inasmuch as the oral tradition still is a living thing, men telling what they have heard from the lips of those who saw and heard Christ in the days of His flesh (cp. Luke i. 2; 1 Johni. 3; 2 Pet. ii. 16-18). (3) Polycarp (contemporary with John for thirty years) was in his early life personally acquainted with other contemporaries of Christ, and keeps in memory what he heard them say. (4) For himself as public teacher (really the most important Christian in the world in the half-century following John’s death), he makes no pretence of delivering anything to men but what he has from those orginal witnesses, either in his faithful memory, or in the Scriptures which are a check upon his memory. (5) When he (and his contemporary “ elders”) pass away, THOSE SCRIPTURES, now coming into place of the living voice of the departed, will remain as the apostolre tradition Irenzeus for himself is found (in his treatise On Heresies), while making the Scripture his only rule of faith, still avowedly showing great deference to what he has heard from the lips of those whom he calls “the elders ”—the “worthies” of an earlier generation of his contemporaries, the coevals of 1 See 2 Thess. iii. 6, A.D. 54(?) ; Rom. xvi. 17, a.p. 59 (7) ; 1 Cor. xi. 2, 16, 23, at verse 2 “ ordinances” is in the margin traditions, AS TO THE CANON. 151 Polycarp,—e.g. Pothinus, whom Irenzeus succeeded as Bishop of Lyons, and who at his martyrdom, A.D. 177, was over ninety years of age. The younger Christian teacher so deferred to the seniors avowedly because the seniors cherished in sacred memory what they had received in an earlier time, reaching back to the days of the apostles. Js i possible to imagine a better mediwm, for the reception and safe trans- mission of apostolic Scriptures, than the sub - apostolic Church under such leading ? The existence of “heresies” in his day, and before it, really constituted, as we saw,! an additional security as regards the cenuineness of Scriptures. The heretics “used ” the Scrip- tures; although,—-as witness Marcion’s case,—their use of them could be misuse. Even in misusing them, they showed what were “the Scriptures” then in use—#e. held as apostolic from the earliest time then in memory. In this way, for instance, the surviving fragments of their writings enable us to show? that our existing Gospels were thus in “use” of Christendom long before Irenzeus wrote or Polycarp had ceased to teach. At one place he has a fanciful declamation of causes why the number of the Gospels must needs be exactly four—no more and no less—which says little for his logical accuracy on that occasion. But the fact of his so reasoning (carelessly) incidentally is clear proof that exactly four was the number of the Gospels familiar to the mind of all Christians (as exactly ten is the number of the Command- ments), and so had been as far back as Irenean memory or knowledge extended. The evidence thus incidentally furnished by heretics refers to points of looking back within forty, thirty, twenty years of John’s death—e. it enables us to see all the way back into the apostolic age. The MuRATORI FRAGMENT? is to be placed here with emphatic note. It is needless to dwell on other orthodox fathers of this Irenean quarter of the century (A.D. 150—175)—a century which Ireneus outlived. Afelito of Sardis, and Hegesippus, which for us are only. names, because their books are lost, are yet names of power in the present relation, 1 See above, pp.129, 130. 2 See above, p. 129. 3 See above, p. 132. 152 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. because they are known to have written copiously on or about “the Scriptures”: which fact is proof that the Scriptures were at that day revered among Christians as the sacred records of the primeval time, the authoritative text for commentation as the law-book of the kingdom, the ever- living fountain for derivation of its life; and that it had been so as far back from that day as the collective memory of the Christian community on earth extended. The apologists of this period (including among them Justin Martyr, A.D. 140-160) have a great place in the scanty remains of its literature, partly in reward of their having been—unlike some of owr Apologies—short. Also, they were—-like pamphlets in a controversy—in some other respects the most likely to interest the reading classes in that and following ages. One of the apologists of this period, Tatian, “the Assyrian” (or “ Syrian” ?), who afterwards fell away into heresy, wrote a work On the Gospels, which came to be “used” like our “ Harmonies” of the Gospels, but long was thought to have been lost irrecoverably, until, a few years ago, it was found in an ancient translation (Syriac). There is thus at last closed, in the affirmative, a controversy about the question whether exactly four was the number of the Gospels “used” by Tatian. A somewhat later con- temporary of his (circa A.D. 180), Theophilus of Antioch, in a powerful Apology, is the earliest extant orthodox father who expressly names John as the author of a Gospel. A little earlier is Athenagoras of Athens, who is said to have studied the Christian Scriptures for the purpose of writing against the religion, and to have been converted by the study to the faith he had thought of subverting (cp. 1 Tim. i. 13; there is a similar anecdote about Gilbert West, with special reference to the gospel history of the Lord’s resurrection). The infidel Celsus—as we know from Origen’s answer to him in the following century—about this time for the same purpose made himself acquainted with the Scriptures of both Testaments. Yet Athenagoras has no testimonies regarding them; Justin Martyr barely refers to the evangels ' From the quotations of his work preserved in Origen, there can be made out a fairly full outline of the gospel history as it is in the Evan- gelists. AS TO THE CANON, 153 on one occasion ; and generally there is in the Apologies (we. in his Apologies) a sparseness of reference to the Christian Scriptures which at first sight may to us appear surprising. We have to consider what is reasonably to be looked for—z.e. judging from the nature of the case. The apologists had little or no real occasion for referring to the Scriptures. Their apologetic works (pamphlets), intended for heathen magis- trates and others, were primarily devoted to explanatory witness-bearing as to the main, plain characters of the religion in the substance of it. For proof of what they said about this it would be useless to appeal to the Scriptures (what did the heathen know or care about these?): the effective appeal was to plain facts in the knowledge of the heathen, or about which the heathen could easily learn the truth by inquiry. But Justin Martyr had made full use of (Old Testament) Scripture in his Debate with Trypho the Jew. Ls it concewable that at that time a forged New Testament should have been foisted on the whole Christian Church, or on any of its regions? (in view of the care as to Scriptures which appears in Irenzus and in the Muratori fragments). 3. The second quarter of the century terminates when Justin “the philosopher’s” career is reaching its culmination at Rome, in the publication of his two Apologies (respectively to the Emperor and to the Senate); which in a few years will be followed by his earning “the martyr’s” name (perhaps five or ten years after A.D. 155, the date of Polycarp’s earning “the crown” that had—Rey. ii. 10—been promised to the “faithful unto death”). Justin illustrates our suggestion of what is reasonably to be expected from the apologists in the way of information regarding Scriptures. From the side- work of his debate with Trypho (making the groundwork of his Dialogus cum Tryphone Judo), we learn that this “ philosopher ” has (Matt. xi. 29) laboriously gone to school in the Scriptures (Old Testament), And we incidentally learn from him such facts as that the primeval history of Christ is recorded in apostolical “memoirs” (his word is that in the title of Xenophon’s “ Memorabilia of Socrates”), which are called gospels ;1 and that the Scriptures are read in 1 Greek, evangelia—first appearance of the word as name of the gospel histories, but showing that this “use” was not new at A.D. 150. 154 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. the congregational worship of Christians every “ Sunday ” (the heathen name at Rome for the first day of the week), which is important indication of the safe keeping of said Scriptures. Beyond these notices there is no distinct express informa- tion regarding our subject in his extant writings, of which the most memorable, the two Apologies, addressed to heathens, have for their leading purpose remonstrance against shameful, cruel injustice to Christians, with appeal to their innocence of life and purity in principles. The same thing appears— along with illustrations of the folly of idolatry and the inadequacy of heathen wisdom,—in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, which perhaps belongs to a time not long after Justin’s. But two things bearing on our subject are worth noting in him and the other apologists of the period.—(1) In their writings there is no trace of there having been anything different from our New Testament Scriptures that went to form their Christian mind by way of authoritative teaching. And (2) especially, in their apologetic there gloriously shines (Phil. ii, 15, 16), like the light in the Bush that burned unconsumed, the heroic martyr spirit, of preparedness for death in attestation of the truth as given to them from God : a spirit the furthest in the world removed from the baseness that could either perpetrate or tolerate a forgery of holy Scriptures. How, in the meantime, it may have gone with the Scriptures in the actual “use” of. them among Christians themselves, we may in some measure divine from other indications to be found in that period. Thus—(1) The Apology of Aristides, recovered surprisingly a few months ago, after being out of sight at least fifteen hundred years, addressed to the Emperor Adrian at Athens about a.p. 130, incidentally refers to records of primeeval Christianity that are in existence as authentic vouchers for the history and law of the religion. (2) Papias, a contemporary of Polycarp, who perhaps outlived him, yet may be placed as teacher at A.D. 1 See what is said about lying at Rev. xxi. 8, 27, and about the word of God at Rev. i. 29, vi. 9, xx. 4.; and N.B. that the most important second century witnesses for “use” of Revelation are, Justin Martyr, Irenzus, and in their famous letter, A.D. 177, the Lyons-Vienne community of martyrs. AS TO THE CANON. 155 125, where! he is at work on “expositions” of (logia kuriaka) sacred records connected with the Lord. (3) The corroboration from Marcion, A.D. 140, and from earlier heretics, has been repeatedly observed by us.2 So early, we perceive a systematic Church-recognition and use of the new Scriptures. 4. The first quarter of the century brings us into the presence of “apostolic fathers,” five of whom are represented by extant writings of theirs. These writings, extremely short and simple, so far enable us to look into the faces of the Christians of that time, and feel the beating of their hearts. Excepting the (lost) “expositions” of Papias, we do not see authorship yet begun: the writings are either (Christian) business letters, or otherwise not works for ordinary publica- tion. There is nothing here in the least resembling distinctively apostolic Scriptures. If the Scriptures now exist, they must have come from an earlier period. Already we have seen that it is not their manner to quote Scriptures as we do, naming them as Irenzus will do when heresies have arisen. But we saw that they give such indications of the existence of our Scriptures as might reasonably be expected if the Scriptures then existed, when they might have felt little need of such “use” of them as we need, while still the Christian mind was full of the fresh living recollection of the persons and personal “teachings” of apostles and their associates. The compact organisation of the Church—in her congregations, under elders and teaching ministers—all one body in a vital and sympathetic unity of heart and mind, made the Christian world from that time onward to be as one great “net” of soul. This, at the opening of the century—as where an estuarial river enters the sea, the estuary being the apostolic age—was the best possible medium, in continuity as of John’s “great river” (Rev. xxii. 1), for transmission down into the second century of whatever treasures of apostolic Scripture may have come down to the opening of it. Let us think of a case of a forger’s trying to foist a spurious apostolic Scripture on that community—eg. 1 Peter—(1) Polycarp has the Epistle by heart. Was the Apostle John 1 See below, p. 195. 2 See above. p. 129. 156 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. the forger who foisted it on him? Or some of those brother “elders” who had conversed with apostles? (2) In the jive regions addressed in the Epistle (1 Pet. i. 1) there now are alive not a few who can well enough remember the time of Peter’s death (2 Pet. i. 15), and (1 Pet. v. 12, 13) Mark and Silas. Jf there was no such letter genuinely Peter’s, there perhaps is not one true-blue elder in all the five regions that would not at once have detected the imposture of a forged 1 eter, at any time from the opening of the second century to the close of it. The idea of all the Churches of all those regions—to say nothing of all Christendom—being imposed upon, is preposterous. WV.B. that even one of the regions, “ Asia,” contained the famous “seven Churches,” Rev. i—lil. At the present stage, however, we are taking into view only, in a general way, the main body of Scriptures in question, leaving in abeyance particular questions, e.g. regard- ing the Antilegomena, which do not really affect the proof of Christianity. And with reference to that main body of Scrip- ture, constituting our existing New Testament for substance, it has appeared in our present survey,—(1) That there was no part of the second century in which forgery could find an opening with a spurious New Testament into Christian “ use,” that would amount to its being received as genuine apostolic before the close of the century by the whole Christian world ; but that (2) the sensitive network of organised Christian intelligence,—1in respect of which the Church through all her borders was one great luminous organism, with leaders like many eyes keenly searching into what affected God’s truth, and a commonalty of members choosing to die rather than lie-—qualified that community in a high degree for guarding against forged Scriptures, and for reception and keeping of genuine Scriptures. On the other hand, AN APOSTOLIC SCRIPTURE SO RECEIVED IN THE SECOND CENTURY, AND KEPT ON TO THE CLOSE OF IT, WAS THENCEFORWARD FOR EVER SAFE. Hierocles might, a cen- tury after that, still dream about suppressing the Christian Scriptures by Diocletian violence; but he might as well have dreamt about suppressing the stars, or the Newtonian system AS TO THE CANON. 157 of astronomy. Once a book has attained to a certain his- torical position, it is thenceforward as insuppressible as the remembering mind of man. So long as that mind endures, no creature power can ever suppress so much as The Pilgrim’s Progress, nor even—we may hope—The Shorter Catechism. 3. Regarding the four “ unquestionable” Epistles of Paul. Relatively to our subject, the whole matter now stands thus: —(1) Though the Scriptures in question had been forged, they might be a valuable source of evidence regard- ing the facts of the primeval history, since forgery would put into books, and the Christian community would receive as true, only what could be believed by the community with reference to that so recent sunrise of the community’s origina- tion by Christ and through His apostles. (2) The genuine- ness of these Scriptures as a class is demonstrated positively, as a fact of the literary history of mankind, by abundance of the best possible external evidence in such a case. And in particular, (3) though the case had been doubtful regarding those Scriptures generally, there are four of them, sufficing for information in the proof of Christianity, whose genuine apostolic authorship is owned as unquestionable by well- informed unbelievers, who otherwise go furthest in denial of the genuineness of New Testament Scriptures, eg. by the Tiibingen school and by Renan. All the “Pauline” Epistles were received as unquestion- able by the second century Church, and have ever since been so received in the Christian world all over. (Besides, they all were patronised by Marcion, along with Luke’s Pauline Gospel, A.D. 140.) But the four Epistles to the Romans, to the Corinthians, lst and 2nd, and to the Gala- tians, are owned as unquestionably genuine Pauline writings by such unbelieving critics as we have referred to; so that there really is no question of apologetics regarding the genuine Pauline authorship of them. And for the apologetic purpose of information regarding the Christianity of the first century, those four Epistles would suffice, though no other New Testa- ment writings existed, or all others were shown to be forgeries, 158 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. The four must have been written! about the time (A.D. 57-60) of the culmination of the circumcision-controversy regarding the ground of man’s acceptance with God. They thus are, excepting 1 and 2 Thessalonians, presumably the earliest extant materials for the history of primeval Chris- tianity. And they not only constitute an historical bridge- way of transition from the second century into the apostolic age. They place us, on solidly historic ground, in clear light of history most authentic, in the presence of apostles, with a believing Church, in regions representative of “ the whole world ” of Roman empire. And they place distinctly in our view, as matter of plain historical fact in the then existing condition of Christianity, a state of things which, as a manifest new creation, is itself a proof of Christianity; while its existence is by implication absolutely fatal to certain sceptical theories regarding the new Scriptures generally—as a man’s appearing in life and health would be fatal to a verdict that he has been murdered. When Strauss’s original theory of the life of Jesus was being directly met by proofs of the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels, the great English scholar, Thomas Arnold, scornfully raised the question, Was Paul a dealer in myths vising under the Roman empire? We now need not inquire besides, Are his Epistles forgeries? Are his Christians mythical personages? Is his Christendom a mere hallucina- tion of day-dreaming, false Christians of a later age ? That the historical reality of a Pauline Christendom is “ unquestion- able” is but another way of saying that these four Epistles are unquestionably Paul’s. And upon the historical ground thus given we can proceed to ascertainments affecting the whole question of the religion and of its records. The four Epistles are the great theological manifesto of distinctively the master systematic theologian among apostles. They are written with a pointed reference to historical con- ditions of belief at that time, regarding precisely the charac- teristic essence and foundation of Christianity as a religion or way of life in fellowship with God. And at the time of their publication, within still recent memory of the whole history of the rise and spread of the religion in the world, 1 See below, pp. 203, etc. AS TO THE CANON. 159 the whole Christian community was through controversy keenly exercising mind and heart about the foundations, in a frame for eagerly strained attentiveness relatively to utter- ances affecting those conditions. Here, then, though there had been no other means of knowing about that primeval history, the very heart and soul of the history are now thrown open to our view; so that the apologist has here a solidly historical ground for standing on in maintenance of the fact of a new creation, the reality of supernatural revela- tion and redemption! While, if supernatural revelation and redemption be shown to be a reality of fact in these Epistles, then everything must be untrue that is opposed to the Bible religion. For instance, all objections to the other Scriptures and to the religion, on the ground of their involving super- naturalism,—which is the real rock of offence in them,— are here destroyed by the way of fact, as a verdict of “murder” against a whole household, on the ground of evi- dence constituted by the family name and face, would be destroyed by demonstration of the innocence of one who bears that face and name. oan More particularly, with reference to the bearing of this matter on certain theories regarding the Scriptures, we find various illustrations of the decisive importance of that fact as to the four Epistles. 1, With reference to the Synoptic Gospels.—By Strauss and others it was made a reason for making these Gospels to be spurious, that at a time so early as the third quarter of the first century they could not have been received as genuine by the Christian community, wxasmuch as (so ran the reasoning) at that early date the Christians, though day-dreaming about wonders of their hero Christ, had not yet grown into such ripeness of definite belief in miracle that they could believe in the wonders of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But the four “unquestionable” Epistles show that, IN FACT, the primeval Christians universally had a definite belref in miracle, such that the Synoptical miracles could not for them be difficulties, as early as the middle part of Paul's apostolic career—a belief that must have existed ever since the day of the great Pente- cost. Strauss acknowledged that, if the Synoptical Gospels really were received by Christians as early as the third 160 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. quarter of that century, then it will be impossible to reason- ably deny the historical reality of the Synoptical miracles. And now we see that the sceptical theorising which would explain those Gospels into forgeries through postponement of the origin of definite belief in miracle, is destroyed by the fact regarding the four Epistles, as a balloon would be destroyed by explosion of a balloon within its hollowness. The impression on the theorising mind was that the primeval Christian belief in supernaturalism was at the outset languid and vague, as if only tentative and con- jectural; but that gradually, under influence of enthusiastic feeling, the belief went on to gain the strength of a fervid assurance, as a spark is fanned into a flame; so that, at the long last, the mind of nascent Christendom came to be a hot- bed of supernaturalistic imaginings, in such measure that a believer could not now look back on the long past day of Christ without peopling its quiet naturalness with the wonderfulness that had come to fill his own mind, TZhat view fits into the supposition that the religion rs not true and divine; and now the fact as to the four Epistles will make it clear as daylight that the view is the extreme opposite of historical reality. For they show “unquestionably,” not only that the Christians of the early-middle apostolic age were capable of belief in definite miracles of Christ, but that they universally had a definite belief in miracles as being actually performed by apostles and by others in their own day and among themselves. (1.) The four Epistles prove that those Christians believed in miracles as being performed by all the apostles. Not only (Rom. xv. 18,19) has Paul habitually worked miracles in all the round of his evangelism, eg. (2 Cor. xu. 12) very copiously at Corinth as early as A.D. 53-54, but also (2 Cor. xii, 13) they are performed by all apostles, being the badge of apostolic office, credential “ signs” of the throned witnesses of God in Christ. Paul could not have so written to the Romans and the Corinthians, if the fact had not notoriously been as here stated by him. (2.) They prove that, in the belief of those Christians, miracles were performed by some who were not apostles (Gal. iii. 5). The worker here may be an evangelist (cp. Acts vil. AS TO THE.CANON, 161 5—7), such as Silas, who has long been out of sight (last seen at 2 Thess. i 1). Or it may be the Holy Ghost, through some other instrument. In any case, there is the super- natural working in proof of the Pauline “Gospel,” and reproof of the false teachers and fickle believers. Paul could not have so written to the Galatians if the thing he speaks of had not been a reality of known fact in their midst. (3.) They prove belief in supernatural operations which (apparently) were not at the hands of Christian leaders like the apostles and their “men” (1 Cor. xi—xiv.). The Corin- thian “gifts” appear to have been. more or less at the command, under God, of the local community of Christians, which could abuse the trust. The operations were at least regarded as being supernatural (1 Cor. xiv.), such as might be expected to produce an overwhelming feeling of awe, as in manifest presence of God (Ex. iii. 5), even on heathens, who— passing along that great artery of commerce between east and west— might happen to look in upon the Christian assembly. Such things going on at Corinth would by travellers be noised all over the Roman world. And Paul could not have so written about them to the Corinthians if they had not, in fact, been going on at the time of his writing. How does all this bear on the sceptical view of the original history of Christian belief in miracles? It utterly destroys that view (cp. Dan. ii. 35). In the apostolic Epistles the Christians are seen, not as eagerly absorbed in the wonderful- ness of miracle, but as settling down to quiet contemplation (1 Cor. xi. 23, ete.) of those things which are the ordinary subjects of Christian thought and teaching in our own time,— of course including always the transcendent miracle of the Lord’s resurrection, which shines all through the Epistles as (Eph. iv. 10) the risen sun of new life to the world! And as to the four Epistles in particular, we observe—(1) that 7n all the twenty-one Epistles, the whole number of allusions to miracles is only seven, only one of which is to the wonder of the gospel history ; and (2) that four of them, most pointedly referring to what was in the personal knowledye or experience of those Christians, are in the four Epistles now in question—ie. Epistles of the early- * This is a remarkable proof of solid poise of judgment in those Christians—far from delusive fanaticism. II 162 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. nviddle apostolic age, every one of which has a distinct reference to supernatural working as a fact in that early part of the age. This—excepting Thessalonians—is the earliest pont of ovr seeing into the mind of Christianity through the Epistles, within five orsix years of the original planting of Christianity at Corinth. And at no later stage, in all the thirteen Epistles of Paul, do we find any appearance of Christians being specially exercised in mind about miracle. The Christian mind of the apostolic age thus appears historically, in point of fact, as most abundantly exercised about miracle, not when furthest away from the time of gospel history, but when nearest to that time. A definite belief in miracle is seen, not as beginning to grow into that mind about the close of Paul’s career, but as in complete possession of that mind as soon as that mind is formed by Paul, as if (see Acts, passim) “a great river” (Rev. xxi. 1) of the Pentecostal “power ” (dynamis—Acts i. 8) from the throne of Christ now risen and glorified (Eph. 1. 18-24) had been flowing in the form of miracle (Heb. ii. 4) along the whole course of apostolic labours from that beginning at Pentecost. The infrequency and incidentalness of allusions to those mighty works really is proof of their great coprousness (see Rom. xv. 18, 19; cp. Acts xix. 11, where the “special” — wncommon means an unusually great outpouring ; therefore made a note of in the history). The character of the allusions to miracle in the four Epistles is noteworthy in the present connection as evidence of a business-like reality, the extreme opposite of (imagined) eagerly credulous fanaticism. We note the following aspects of that character :— | (1.) The allusions in all the cases are the opposite of far- fetched. hey rise immediately out of the business in hand and in heart of the writer and his readers.” 1 N.B. The four Epistles were written within a quarter of a century of Christ’s death; and Paul’s great proof of the Lord’s resurrection (1 Cor. xv.) was laid before Corinthian heathens within twenty years of that transcendent event, of whose reality hundreds of trustworthy eye- witnesses were, along with officially witnessing apostles, still alive on earth, while (Acts iii. 12-16 ; Heb. ii. 1-4) its reality was further attested by all the apostolic miracles. 2 The allusion at Rom. xv. 18, 19 prepares an opening for him where (Rom. i. 13) he at present is a stranger. AS TO THE CANON. 163 (2.) In all the cases the business-occasion is of supremely urgent importance. It is war-time—of the justification controversy —1in which the great Apostle of the Gentiles has had to draw sword as if alone; that is, against Insurgent opposition even of professing Christians to the religion in its tap-root principle of true life in God. For the purpose of guarding against that wave now threatening extinction of this dear life of God’s people—of coping with the insurrection, quelling it, repelling it, expelling it, preventing the recurrence of it—he now is agonising through the four pitched battles of a great campaign, with all his giant force of nature on fire with love to God and men and Godman Christ (2 Cor. v. 10-21). And his allu- sions to miracle all come into hig warfare of the kingdom (Gal. i. 8) with the precision and force of so many thunderbolts, heaven-directed, in supernaturalism of power that is wielded by the inspiring wisdom of God. (3.) In all the cases, the mind of the community addressed — and of the Christendom which right soon will be eagerly treading these Epistles—was so exercised in connection with the great controversy (whose questions were visibly still burning, though it should be in ashes) that all such allusions of his to miracle would unfailingly be tested by the judgment of myriads of readers far from prepossessed in favour of the writer’s interest in those allusions; and the circumstances were such that he would not have ventured to make any one of the allusions if there had been any possibility of disputing the reality of the wonders. (4.) In all the cases the subject is introduced, not as of miracle were a new thing to speak of, and now first heard about, but rather a subject familiar to all concerned, so that an allusive word suffices. We can see in Origen, two centuries later, that the apostolic miracles made a profound and abiding impression. So does an extinct voleano on a reflecting mind. Yet the people who live in the region while the volcano stil] is active do not speak about its outbreakings unless there be (Act xix. 11) some “special” occasion for introducing the subject ; as Paul had occasion to remind the Corinthians that an apostle was the founder of their Church, and the Romans, that an apostle, with blessing from on high, has it in his view, yea, “longs,” to visit their Church, and that it is not the mere 164 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. wisdom of man that goes before him in this Epistle to them, In the gospel history, miracle occupies all minds, as the railway did when it first was being made—a world’s wonder. In the apostolic age, the wonderfulness is a river that has been quietly flowing in the city (Ps. xlvi. +) from the time of sts foundation—so long that, while all the people know that the life-stream is here flowing, it is not spoken of unless there be some special occasion. And the river—of supernaturalism in Christian belief —happens to be spoken of in every one of the four Epistles because, and only because, in every one of them Paul has a very special occasion for alluding to the extraordin- ary supernaturalism in working, which in the course of his ministry has been the attesting seal of God upon his teaching. At a later day, when “the Churches” come to * have rest ” from controversial civil warfare, the special occasions for alluding to miracle will seldom occur, and so the allusions to the subject will be few (2 Pet. i, 16-18; Heb. ii. 4). Then the Christian of the apostolic age—as represented, ¢.9., by the Johannine Epistles and The Apocalypse—will no longer be occupied with the subject, except as the subject, in its due place in the system of the religion, ought to occupy and exercise the Christian mind of every age. The manner of the mind of the primeval Christians in relation to the subject—a manner so far from all appearance of delusive excitement about wonderfulness—is evidential of a calm strength of “wisdom and a sound mind,” guaranteeing their testimony. 9 With reference to the main body of New Testament Scriptures.—The forgery theory of Baur, intended for serving as a “critical” foundation to Strauss’s mythic theory, dealt with Paul’s case as follows:—‘“ Paul really changed the essential nature of the Christianity which the original apostles had taught as from Christ, by placing a divinely glorious Christ, with a free salvation for all believers, where they had spoken only of a reformer, with salvation only for Jews by birth or by adoption, and that only as the reward of their works of the (Old Testament) law. Hence arose a violent con- troversy, of which the four Epistles (Gal., 1 and 2 Cor., and Rom.) are authentic monuments, and ‘ unquestionably’ Paul’s AS TO THE CANON. 165 own. Thereafter there was a ‘reconciliation,’ in consequence of Paulinism completely obtaining the upper hand. And— except Zhe Apocalypse—the body of remaining New Testa- ment Scriptures are forgeries, written somewhere in the second century, on Pauline lines of doctrine, and with a dominating ‘tendency’! to hide the fact of Pauline innova- tion.” (The words in this representation are ours.) It may be asked, how the theorisers were able to believe in such infamy of impudent imposture and of base compliance, on the part of such men as Paul, and the original apostles, and the primeeval Christians generally, as the theory implies ? And it would not be irrelevant in answer to point to the fact? that among the theorisers themselves there was exhibited an apparent insensibiity to common honesty relatively to religious profession, as if they simply had no conscience in this matter. That would constitute incapacity for appreciation of the moral evidence, of personal truth and honour, so gloriously conspicuous in Paul and his brother-apostles and fellow- Christians generally (John vii. 17; Ps. cxii. 4). The blindness thus caused would help to account for the enormous “critical” blunder of making such men to have been con- spirators in an imposture that has changed for the better the whole moral life of mankind. Outside of Scripture, that forgery-theory has not, wm the Christianity of the second century, a shadow of historical founda- tion. One or two scraps of ostensible proof in fact, which Baur pressed into the service of his theorising, in reality of reason do not furnish to his theory so much as a pin-point of foundation for an inverted pyramid of gas, Thus— (1.) As to the existence in the second century of a some- thing of Judaicalism, laying on works of the law a stress that is perilous to the Pauline evangelism of salvation by grace. This no more shows that Judaism had been the original teaching of the Twelve than the present-day existence of Ritualism in Protestant Churches is proof that Romanism was the original teaching of the Reformers—of Luther and Calvin, of Zwingli and Knox. (2.) As to the existence of Nazarenes or Hbionites in some connection with the second century Church. From the little 1 Tubingenese for purpose or design. 2 See above, pp. 5, 6. 166 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. that is known about them their doctrine may appear to have been, with specific variations, generally a sort of amalgam of Judaism and Socinianism. They perhaps were individually pure-living men, of a contemplative disposition, like the J ewish Essenes, and were attracted toward the Christian communion by its purity of discipline and moral character. But they never at any time represented the Church. They are nowhere seen on the battle-front of her contendings for the faith. Their names are not on the roll of her confessors and martyrs. Always few, they were never essential as contributory to the great stream of the movement of her new life in the world ; they were felt only as making a surface-ripple here and there, or perhaps a tiny side-stream or eddy, which in places might move in a direction the opposite of the main stream. Their distinctness from the general community is presumptive proof of their not representing the primeval faith. The copiousness of writing about them, occasioned by the obscurity of history in its representations of them, is presumptive proof of their original and abiding comparative insignificance. We speak of the “ unquestionable” Epistles, not as acknow- ledging real questionableness of title in the case of other Scriptures, but as giving due emphasis to the distinctive point in their case, that their genuine apostolic authorship is not questioned even by unbelievers who are qualified for historical judgment in this case. They place the real historical Chris- tianity of the middle-apostolic age in unmistakable clearness of strong light, like a sunshine before which the theorisings pass away as vapours. This would have been so though Paul had been the only witness in them. It is needless to raise any question about his honesty, which is as clear as his ability ; the man who does not see it has need, not of argument, but of eye-salve. And as to the main, plain matters, which alone are in the apologetic question regarding the Scriptures and regarding Christianity, it is impossible that Paul should be really mistaken about them as he speaks of them ; as it would be impossible for Luther to be mistaken about the meaning of his own doctrine of justification, or for Robert Baillie to be mistaken about what is going on before his eyes at an important meeting of the Westminster Assembly, which THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 167 he is describing on the spot in a letter to Mr. William Spang. In these Epistles we have as witnesses, not only Paul, but also the original apostles and the whole Christian world of that day. Not only have those apostles and that world the profoundest vital interest in the matters of them, so that every syllable in them will set the heart of all Christendom a-beating; and not only is the complete absence of subsequent opposition or denial constructively a tacit acquiescence of that Christen- dom in his representations, but he calls that Christendom to witness by his very manner of speaking. It is not only that now (1 Cor. xv. 1-4) the Corinthians are bound to bear him out in his teaching; the doctrine has been their own ever since they were Christ’s, as Christ is God’s. The Galatians not only receive his doctrine in the foundation of their Chris- tianity, but (Gal. ii.) know that this essentially is the doctrine which original apostles had from the beginning delivered as from the Lord. And the Roman Christians know that the magnificent Paulinism of the greatest of Epistles is only the Pauline manner of representing the common Christianity of both Testaments. These letters place before us, as co-eye-witnesses with the writer, not only the original apostles at this time alive on earth (1 Cor. ix. 5), but every intelligent Christian then in the world. And in them, that is, in the visible faith of the Christian world, A.D. 57-60, there is the whole offence of that supernaturalism which is what makes the real root-objection to the other Scriptures and to the Bible religion. ESSAY V. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. (2.) TuE GOSPELS IN PARTICULAR. WHILE for a special purpose conforming to the custom of describing four of the Pauline Epistles as “ unquestionably ” genuine, we hold ourselves free to maintain, as demonstrable on proper grounds of literary judgment in the case, that other 168 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Scriptures of our New Testament, and in particular the four Gospels, are of a genuineness that cannot justly be questioned, and consequently are of a canonicity that cannot be really shaken though heaven and earth shall pass away. If they really be so, then the oppositions to their claim to be received as apostolic Scripture can be only as passing clouds, perhaps baffling or bewildering the reason for a time, like the reason- ings of idealism or scepticism against the trustworthiness of our bodily senses. It is an important fact as to the four little books now in question that, along with the continuation of Luke at Acts i. 1-12, they contain, excepting one short sentence, every par- ticle of real information regarding the earthly ministry of Christ that is known to have existed in this world at any time since the last apostle left it The exception is (Acts xx. 35) the quotation which Paul made from the heart of the Ephesian elders in his farewell address to them. It is so like himself that it might be entitled the (fifth) Gospel “ according to” Paul the Magnanimous. With that exception there is not in the New Testament, outside of the four Gospels, anything of di0- graphy of Christ. Apparent exceptions.—(1) The reference to the Transfiguration at 2 Pet. i. 16-18 is not biography. It is criticism of the character of the fundamental biography, namely, the original apostolic “declaration” regarding the earthly ministry of the Lord (1 John 1.3; Heb. 1.3; Luke i. 2). The passage is a reasoned judgment? as to the trustworthiness of gospel history ; and the reference to the Transfiguration narrative is production of a sample case in point, a case in which the point of the his- torical reality of so amazing things appears vividly in amaz- ingness. (2) The references at Gal. i, 12 and Cor. xi. 28, etc., are to occurrences outside of the period of the great ministry, namely, communications to Paul at a later time. As the relative apocrypha are not biography, but fiction, there is not, we repeat, outside of the New Testament, a par- 1 There are one or two things in Church tradition that perhaps, conceiv- ably, are biography of Christ. But they at best are not fully authenticated, while intrinsically they are quite insignificant; so that any reference to them in a general statement like the above would mar its fidelity of historical representation. * Greek, criticism. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 169 ticle of authenticated biography of Christ; while now we see that inside of it the sentence at Acts xx. 55 is the only particle outside of the four Gospels (along with Acts 1. 1-12). The only real supplement to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is Paul’s reminiscence of “the word of the Lord Jesus, Jt is more blessed to give than to receive” (cp. 1 Cor. xui.; 2 Cor. vill. 9; Eph. iv. 28-v. 2). The word for “gospel” in the New Testament (evangelion) means simply, the good news, the message of salvation (1 Pet. iv. 17; cp. Gal. i. 8, 9), doctrine of grace. It came to mean, the substance of apostohe history of the Saviour’s earthly ministry (evangelium), eg., “the gospel according to,” ete. The use of the word as meaning (“a gospel”) one of the books recording that history (Zvangelia) first appears in Justin Martyr (A.D. 150). But his manner of mentioning this name of the “memoirs ” (as he calls them) shows that the name at that time had come to be of use and wont among Christians. 1. Scriptural setting of the Gospel History. In the preceding Essay IV. we travelled up through the second century into the first... And at the middle of the first century we found solid historic ground, in the strong light of Paul’s four “unquestionable” Epistles. In one of these (1 Cor. xv. 1-8; ep. 2 Cor. xii. 12, 13) he carries us back to a point of time at which, some five years before the date of his writing it, we are with him, A.D. 538-54, in a newly formed Christian church at Corinth (cp. 1 Cor. ii, 8-15), within twenty years of the day of Christ's dying on the cross ; and then and there we hear him citing an array of eye-witnesses of the fact of the Lord’s resurrection. Looking back with him (e.g. at 1 Cor. xi. 23, ete.) to yet an earlier day than that of the dying of the Lord Jesus, and at such notes as occur, ey., at 1 Pet. uu, 21-24; 2 Pet. 1. 16—18, we perceive that a some- thing of constructive biography of Christ—some view of what must have been His earthly career—is derivable from apostolic doctrine regarding Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. And (see Acts i, 21, 22) yet further back, at the opening of the ereat ministry, where the eye rests on a precursory ministry of the Baptist, we can see (Matt. xi. 13) a remoter source of 1 See “survey of the period,” above, pp. 146, ete. 170 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. constructive biography of Christ, means of judging as to what had to be in the career of Jesus of Nazareth, to be derived from Old Testament prescription to the Messiah, or intimation of the office of the Coming One (Matt. xi. 2, 3). These two, apostolic doctrine (recollection, John xiv, 25, 26, xv. 26, 27) and Old Testament prescription (forecast, Luke xxiv. 25-27, 43-45), would have enabled us to know, in a measure, what had to be, and must have been, the career of Jesus of Nazareth, though there had not been any book treating expressly of gospel history, nor any other source of direct information regarding that career. Employing the common reckoning of the relative dates, we begin with observing, as historically certain beyond all doubt, that the greatest of all ministries had place in Palestine, A.D. 30-40. And we perceive that, within that limited area in space and time—though we should otherwise have been left completely in the dark with reference to what is the greatest career in the history of the universe—still there is a light for us, a twofold light, namely, a light of Old Testament prescrip- tion, thrown forward from the baptism of John, on the yet future career; and, on the career now past, a light of apostolic doctrine, thrown back from the time on our side of the great Pentecost. Old Testament forecast uttered its final word through John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 13). Not only is his ministry matter of fact in general history, but the Old Testament, of which he was a minister, was in historical fact extant in writing, and in institutions at the heart of a people’s life, centuries before his time. And in its prescriptions to Messiah, or intimations of the career of the coming Christ, we can see what in some great central measure must have been the career of Jesus the Son of Mary, if (Acts xvii. 3) it be a fact that He was (Matt. xi. 2, 8) the coming Christ; and even what His outward course must more or less have been if only (what no one doubts) He professed to be the Old Testament Messiah. For any one making that profession would unfailingly endeavour to make it good, by conforming to the Old Testament prescrip- tion, fulfilling its forecast of that Christ of God (Matt. xi. 4—6 ; Luke iv. 18-21), carrying out, if we may so speak, Jehovah's written engagement in the Anointed One (Heb. x. 7, where THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON, Le we have Old Testament Christianity finding itself in Him ; vetus in novo patet, Augustine). Apostolic doctrine is, in sufficient measure, for us “ unques- tionably ” attainable in Rom., 1 and 2 Cor., and Gal., or in the general history of early Christianity. That teaching places us at the great Pentecost, where (Acts i. 8) begins the witness- bearing of the new dispensation to all peoples. And the witness-bearing then and thereafter throws a strong light back on the preceding career of Jesus, This it does of necessity in the nature of the case, even though theologically the doctrine should be mistaken (John xii. 16) in its construction of the meaning of the facts in that career. Even in that case the apos- tolic doctrine would have enabled us to see what was thought to be the meaning, so as to form some conception of what must have been the appearance which the facts presented to, or the impression which they made upon, those who “from the beginning had been eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” (The apostles themselves are—Eph. ii. 20—fully of the mind, most fully expressed in Hebrews all through, that the retro- spective light of their doctrine regarding Jesus of Nazareth coincides with the prospective light of Old Testament pre- scription to the Messiah.) Now, from the view-point of apologetics, the essential matter in relation to gospel history is the supernaturalism of revelation and redemption. And so the testimony of the Gospels to the historical reality of supernaturalism—parti- cularly in the form of miracle of power—makes in effect the whole vital interest of apologetics in these books. Hence, in connection with the proof of Christianity, a very great point is made on behalf of those books if it be shown, independently of them, that there was a supernaturalism— or even that there was a distinct profession of supernatural- ism—in the career of which they are a professed account. And that service is rendered by the constructive biography of Christ, which is obtainable from the combination of apostolic doctrine with Old Testament prescription. On the one hand, the Old Testament shows, in its coming Christ, One who, coming to our world through miraculous conception, works miracles of healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead. On the other hand, the apostolic doctrine shows, V2 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. in its crucified Jesus, One who, declared to be the Son of God by His miracle of resurrection, goes on to produce a new creation by His Spirit, planting and upbuilding in our lost world a new true spiritual kingdom, of “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” It thus is futile to object to the gospel histories on account of their supernatural- ism, wnless we be prepared to reject the whole testimony of the Old Testament regarding what the Messiah was to do, and the whole testimony of the apostolic and subsequent ages regarding what actually has been done by Jesus Christ the Lord. For, according to both of those two witnesses equally, the history of Messiah or Christ on earth is truly supernatural or nothing. The point we thus are noting, of that guarding of the gospel history, by the old dispensation on the one hand and the apostolic epoch on the other, is greatly strengthened by the reciprocal corroboration of these two witnesses, each to each, in respect of which they are as the two sides of an arch, meeting in the key-stone (Eph. li. 20); sides which, though in isolation neither of them should be able to stand, yet in combination, meeting in that key-stone, are solidly strong as Lebanon or Sinai. But the point is so obvious as to be in danger of eluding the apprehension, or failing to impress, like a truism. It therefore is desirable here to do something toward arresting attention to it, and making the significance of it to be palpably distinct. And for that purpose we will here avail ourselves of a help that came unsought. It was in the form of a dream; not an imaginary dream, such as theorisers make to have been the waking occupation of primeval Christians, but a bond fide vision of night slumber. It was vividly dis- tinct on the pilgrim’s awakening, as the full moon which then was clearly shining. And it was taken down in writing, and the writer had resumed his task-work of the present state- ment as it first was, before he had any conception of an interpretation of it bearing on the present matter. A Dream of the Higher Criticism.—I was standing beside a river at the (other) antipodes, on a spot where I had often stood in times long past. On the reach of the river at that spot four men in a boat were fishing unconcernedly. (That it was unconcernedly, I was aware without any process of learning % } f j ; Oe re THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 173 that it was so.) Down-stream to my left there was, heavily pushing up-stream, a noisy plunging and splashing. It was made by WALRUS (the natural history was in the dream); that is to say, a monstrous Least... (This, too, I was aware of without any mental process. In reality of life I had heard that same sound long before—possibly made by an otter on predatory round among the shallows in the mid-summer season of night-fishing; but now I knew it intuitively as made by Walrus.) When he arrived up-stream in sight he seemed all one enormous mouth wide-open, hike a vast horizontal funnel, trumpet-shaped—a yawning devoration. He went up behind the four fishermen, and swallowed them and the boat. (This I simply observed as a fact, without any feeling of grief, alarm, or wonder.) As I kept looking on with interest, but neither disconcerted nor excited, Walrus was opened from within, and in the opening facing me appeared a comely damsel with a look of energy; while on her left reclined, in the boat, a fine old man. Walrus was thrown away as a skin (the italics are the dream’s), and the four fishermen were there “all safe!” The interpretation (which came afterwards unsought).—The boat is (evangeluum) gospel history. The four fishermen are (Evangelia) Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The comely maiden with a look of energy is apostolic doctrine. The fine old man reclining in the same boat is the Old Testament. Walrus thrown away as a skin is rationalism rejected as having nothing in it. And the Moral is—That the evangelic his- torians are safely guarded against antisupernaturalism, by apostolic recollection in combination with Old Testament fore- shadowing and prediction. Renan found in Palestine a “fifth gospel.” That is to say, the physical nature which he saw there, and the human life at this day, were so completely the nature and the natural human life in the evangelists as to place him at home in these, perceiving their faithful vividness of realism. His one objection to them, on account of which they are not to be ~ trusted as witnesses regarding plain fact, is, that the facts are supernatural, while he knows, from atheistic philosophy (Col. ii. 8), that “there is no supernatural.” That is to say, what speaks in him is not really historical criticism, but meta- physical atheism. Similarly, Strauss’s whole strength was thrown into an endeavour to discredit the gospel narratives because they bear witness to miracle as a fact, while he knew, 1 Capital B—Apocalypticé. Vis THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. from Hegelian pantheism, that “miracle is impossible” (cp. Matt. xxii. 29 and xix. 26). A metaphysic which makes “God” to be (pan) “ every ” thing but living and true (ep. Acts xvii, 23), had to invent the forger to create the Gospels and other books of the New Testament, “in a concatenation accordingly,” all in order to get rid of miracle. But it is not so got rid of. The Old Testament had miracle in its forecast of the Messiah’s career ; and the apostolic age, the creative new-beginning of our modern world with all true civilisation of the peoples, has miracle in its retrospect (which itself is miraculous recollec- tion, John xiv. 25, 26, xvi. 14) of a miraculous incarnation and rising from the dead. And the two literatures, prophetic and apostolic, reciprocally sustain one another as the two sides of a wondrous arch of revelation on record, 2/ they have the gospel history as their key-stone of meeting. If they have not this key-stone, they fall to the ground. So far as regards the supernaturalism which is the real thing in question, the Gospels are “all safe,” unless the whole Bible system be destroyed. (Now, in fact, it 2s not destroyed—far from it.) The Old Testament, unless it have this fulfilment, can have none (Acts iv. 12, xvii. 3); but is in its constitutive essence a nothing now apparent—as Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, run away to nothingness in Syrian desert sands. And the great apostolic epoch, in its constitutive essence (Acts i. 8,11, 22) of making known to the peoples “ the unsearchable riches of Christ,” is nothing but a mere illusory river without water of life—a mocking mirage of the desert—unless it have as fountain-head, what is the object of a true recollec- tion, an historical evangel, of which there is no trace of a record but in our four evangels. These records, we know historically, have been held in the bosom of the Christian community ever since the remotest point of time to which the literary history of Christendom can be traced. The only real objection to them is, that they are narratives of miracle in real experience of mankind. And this objection is pointless if there be supposed the being of a God, a supreme supernatural free agent, such that miracles are possible because with Him all things are possible, though such wonders are not possible with man. It thus is not a true THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 175 rationalism, but a perverse, incoherent unreason or irrational incoherence, to close our eyes against the historical evidence for genuine apostolic authorship of these Gospels, on account of their saying that the Son of God has done things which are possible only with God, in extraordinary providence, except on the supposition that in reality “ there is no God” (Ps. xiv. 1). And there is a further perversity of incoherent irrational- ism in making it a special objection to the Gospels that they have supernaturalism in them ; since supernaturalism fills and forms, as inspiring soul of all, the two literatures respectively of the old dispensation and of the apostolic epoch, both pointing to a transcendent manifestation of supernaturalism as characteristic of the evangelic epoch (of the gospel history) in which they meet as in a common key-stone of connection. Their supernaturalism as such cannot be a reasonable ground of objection to the evangelical narratives except—we again perceive—on a view that would necessitate rejection of all other Scriptures, of both Testaments alike. 2. The collective “ Gospel” (evangelium). Renan! bears witness to the words of Jesus, that those in Matthew’s reports of discourses must be genuinely Christ’s own, inasmuch as (cp. John vil. 46) they are essentially unlike all other human words. Dr. Salmon? remarks that the genuineness of these reported utterances has to be admitted by men claiming to be qualified for literary historical criticism, since there is nothing else like them in the literature of mankind. And in the gospel history, where historical authenticity is thus far owned by Renan, “the works of Christ” (=“miracles of Messiah, Matt. xi. 2) are inseparably blended with His words, as the soul blends with the body in the corporate unity of manhood.’ Besides, in 1 See his testimonies regarding Gospels below, pp. 210, etc. 2 Books of the New Testament. 3 Here we take no account of the opinion of some critics, that in Matthew the discourses are separable from the general framework of narrative : an opinion connected with the view that originally there was in use a collection of the discourses by themselves alone, which may have been the logia of Papias (as to which see below, pp. 212, etc.). 176 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. the apostolic history, when appeal is made to the facts in His ministry as proofs of His divinity of mission and of person, His words are not brought in as evidence, but only His works—His works as distinctively miraculous (Acts i, 22, x. 38; Rom. i. 4). And, intrinsically, the “mighty works ” are more likely to have been accurately held in memory than the “ words” (that “eye-gate” is thus better than “ear-gate ” ; witness Horace, Ars Poetica, as well as Bunyan, Holy War). For this purpose—to displace apostolic faithful memory in favour of atheistic invention—Renan vaguely speaks of the tradition found in the Gospels as a “chaos” (cp. Luke 1. 2); as if an original distinctness had been effaced by avalanche obliteration. But such a “work” of avalanche would be truly miraculous“ extraordinary””— while crushing ada- mantine rocks into obscure shapelessness of chaos, yet leaving garden parterres undisturbed with flowers unsullied in full bloom. And in that chaos even he finds the things most perishable in their nature—the characteristic individualities of spoken words—uneffaced in clear distinctness, while he supposes that those mighty works, which well might have retained their distinctness clear in all men’s memory (eg. of the Jews after Pentecost, A.D. 34—Acts ii. 22—as well as of Celsus playing the Jew five generations later) ineffaceable as granitic Sinai mountains, yet faded into indistinctness in the memory of those who, for men’s information in all ages (Acts i. 21, 22), “from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word” (see 1 Johni. 1-3 and 2 Pet. 1. 16-18). In any case, the fact of the matter is that in those actual records of the great career, a distinct supernaturalism is all- pervasive as the soul is in the unity of corporate manhood. Hence an Zece Homo endeavour to set forth the naturalism of life and speech apart from the supernaturalism of person and work, proves to be in effect an exhibition of really nothing as it is in these records, but only a collection of essays on isolated externalisms, which in their isolation (John xv. 1-4) are lifeless as the fallen leaves or severed branches of a vine. Such destructive atomism is destroyed by simply saying, “Ecce Christus” or “Ecce Deus-homo,”? which is 1 Titles of works oceasioned by the Ecce Homo referred to in our text above. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. yy a verb. sap. sat. of real “higher criticism” in this relation. Here as elsewhere in the criticism of the Scriptures, the man who will have the body of naturalism apart from the soul of supernaturalism loses both, like Herod investing Christ with merely naturalistic regalia in the original Ecce Homo (cp. John ix. 39). | It is a strange thoughtlessness, if not mockery—to say nothing about reasonableness—to lavish eulogistic eloquence (John v. 41, 42) on the man Christ Jesus while reserving judgment on the question—as if avizandwm—whether he is not a blaspheming impostor (for whom crucifixion were a far too easy escape), in claiming to be “the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One.” The old Socinians felt the incoherence of unreason here, and showed their feeling of it in another incoherent irrationalism, persecuting one of their number, David Blandrata, to death in prison, on account of his refusing to worship the Christ whom they made “mere man.” Even an infidel reading the words, “He bore the cross,’ cannot there see merely a young carpenter carrying a log of wood to Calvary. And an Zece Homo declamation about the natur- alities of gospel history may be, on the part of one who knows not what manner of spirit he is of, under hallucination of imagining that he sees our lower world without sunlight, merely because he does not look up to the sun. These Gospels, whether genuine or spurious, are not really read by us; our “criticism” is merely blindness groping after light (1 Cor, ii. 14), if we do not perceive in them, not only a complete reality of manhood in Christ, but also, as the grand fact regarding Him, there incognito in lowliness, “for us men and for our salvation ” (Wicene Symbol), that He is Immanuel Jesus, Godman in His person, and Redeemer in His office. The gospel miracles, occasional outshinings or unveilings (John ii, 11, cp. i. 14, 18) of that supernaturalism of personal and official glory (2 Pet. i. 16-18), are, while distinctly supernatural, yet natural in a true Sense, as it is natural for light to be when God says, “ Let there be light.” That is, like the Mosaic wonders, they are in keeping with the whole system of the things in which they are a part, and with what otherwise is known to us about God, and the universe, and man. They thus are not wnnatural or monstrous: as a 12 178 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Godman “dwelling among us” is not like “a centaur ms (Professor Huxley) or manbeast (ignobleness of conception ! ) “in Piccadilly.”* They are generally in the line of nature, though on that line going beyond her bounds—as incarna- tion differs from ordinary generation, and resurrection differs from rising out of sleep. Even quack-Egyptians (Ex. viii. 19) might (John xv. 24) see in them meet and pointed manifestations of nature’s God. If they be on a different line from nature’s, yet they are— cp. the Parables—of the same type with the All-worker’s operations in her history,’ so as to show that the Eternal Creator is here, in a redeeming grace producing new creation. All these detailed “works of the Christ” are so many pre- destined (John v. 36, etc.) indications (‘“signs,’—*the finger of God”) of one great new-creative “ work” (John iv. 34, xvii. 4) of that Beloved, in whom we have the redemption through His blood. And in their combined purpose and effect, while they are a “seal” of the Father on the worker, they at the same time (Luke xiii. 16) are so many battles in a great campaign, where the mighty Worker treads the wine-press alone, for man’s deliverance from a spiritual tyranny of evil (1 John iii, 8; Heb. i. 14) that has a stronghold in physical ill-conditions of manhood and consequently of man’s “ world” (1 John v. 19; cp. Acts x. 38); while the effortless ease, as of omnipotence in the working, that is represented by His customary description of them simply as “ His works,” * is—as contrasted with apostolic labour (2 Cor, xii. 12) in the doing of such things—another light-radiant “manifestation” of the personal glory that is veiled in His lowliness of our flesh. So truly are they thus natural, that a child who reads or hears the gospel story of grace sees in the wondrous works of Jesus nothing startling, as (though—Luke iv. 16—31— the Nazareth people “ wonder” at them) there is no startling strangeness in His “ gracious words.” And grown people who study these narratives, while on reflection they become aware of the essential “extraordinariness” of this working, which makes the “ works” to be for them pointed “signs” of super- 1 See on New Testament words for “mtracle,” below, pp. 188, etc. 2 Heb. ii. 10, and Butler’s Analogy. 3 See below, p. 188. ee . ee THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 179 naturalism, such as to produce in the mind a wonder that is a beginning of wisdom,'—yet have no feeling of there being in the supernaturalism anything unnatural or monstrous; and can easily see that, if the wonders of the narrative were with- drawn, the realistic naturalism of the whole would disappear into a veritable “ chaos,” or débris of materials for declamatory eccehomoism, instead of an “evangel” of true life for man. The amount of space in the narrative that is occupied by the miracles is—as compared with the space given to the Mosaic wonders in (Heb. iv. 2) the ancient gospel of redemption—really very small. But they have an effect on our mind like that produced in Israel’s mind by recollection (cp. Ps. Ixviii. 7, etc.), in serving as Jehovah’s “ memorial,” keeping Him in the mind’s view as the living God Almighty, through all Israel’s generations. The sword of the hero Fingal, being of supernatural tempering, never needs to strike a second stroke (cp. Heb. x. 12). These miracles, few and simple comparatively, once for all, are definitive as the first appearance of the sun (Gen. 1.16); they are felt as for all ages a transfiguration of that naturalism in which the eternal Word made flesh is among us, so turning the water of our natural existence into wine.” As it was when His very raiment was white and glistering with unearthly brightness, and His countenance did shine as the sun, so in these records His whole career (John xx. 30, 31) is seen to be one great continuously connected movement of progressive revelation in and through redemption com- pleted on the cross (John iii, 15, 16; cp. Phil. ii. 5-11). And the “evangel” which we thus find in those “ Evangels” —the gospel history in those Gospels—is precisely what is called for, by way of true (not pantheistic) “ continuity,’ in movement of the living God Eternal through the ages (Dan. vi. 13, 14). A history without chat, in realised “ manifesta- tion” through a true key-stone of meeting past and future (Eph. ii. 20) would, precisely at the fateful transition-point of history, make a “gap” or “break” most lamentable— 1 Socrates made wonder to be the beginning of wisdom ; Solomon, “fear of the Lord.” N.B. that the gospel thawma is also teras (below, p. 188). * At John ii. 11 a literal rendering is, “this commencement of the signs did Jesus make,” ete. 180 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. hiatus valde deflendus—even for a “philosophy of history,’ while for sinful human hearts it would leave an orphancy (John xiv. 18) like that of the Emmaus two who sadly said, “ But we trusted that it had been He that should have redeemed Israel,” or that of the Magdalene lamenting (in a truly “ higher criticism ’—-1 Cor. ii. 15), They have taken away my Lord, and T know not where they have laid Him. But He has given assur- ance, “I will not leave you (lit.) orphans,” and explained how. SURVEY OF THE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING PERIOD. —In the few years A.D. 30-40, on the narrow field of Palestine, it is a fact of general history that this greatest of all things (Heb. i. 6, cp. ii. 10) took place. All the great after history of the world’s new true civilisation has—witness the apostolic doctrine—flowed out of that ; while—witness the Old Testa- ment prescription to Messiah—that is the lake into which there flowed convergent the great streams of the wide world’s history from the far ancient times (cp. the description of the Bible as being a “history of the world as God’s world” . Ts there, has there ever been, any record of that career of Jesus, in which all human history thus appears to have either starting-point or goal ? ' The Socratic teaching has been put into stereotype of a record like our Synoptical Gospels by Xenophon,’ and of a record like our fourth Gospel in the Dialogues of Plato “the divine.” The primitive Church findings, as to the doctrine of the person of Christ, and of that whole revelation through apostles and prophets in which (John i. 16) He is the central sun, are recorded solemnly in definitions of ecumenical councils, and were earlier as a popular summary in our Apostles Creed. The Reformation movement, of restored life in Western Christendom, is recorded in histories like Knox’s and systems like Calvin’s, with more of other books than the world has been found able to contain. Besides, the old exodus movement, of a typical and shadowy redemption, in the form of originating Israel’s free nationality, is represented to all coming times by Mosaic Scriptures, as well as by dumb-show of institutions, followed up in. articulation of. prophetic ex- 1 See the whole passage, John xiv. 15-25. 2 See the explanation of John xiv. 18 at vers, 22-24. 8 Bishop Butler. 4 Memorabilia—Justin Martyr’s name for Gospels. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 181 pository applications, illustrated by history and sacred song; while the subsequent movement of Christ’s own apostles is represented at least by—instar omniwmn—the “ unquestion- able” four great theological Epistles of the greatest of merely human expositors of religion. Is Christ Himself, incompar- ably the greatest factor in all history, the doer of incomparably the greatest of all historical “works,” to be alone, of really historical personages, unrepresented in history, “the memory of the race,” by means of books, the safely-guarded record of that memory? Here we perceive a new significance in the striking fact observed by us as the outset of the present essay, namely, the fact of— Complete, and seemingly sudden or abrupt, disappearance from the world, of all direct information regarding that great ministry excepting what is recorded in the four Gospels now existing. Papias habitually conversed about gospel history with men who had been personally hearers of apostles. Polycarp delighted in giving reminiscences. of what he had personally heard about that history and the miracles from men who had seen Christ. In the living tradition of the first century, from its middle (Luke i. 1-4) down to its close (John xx. 30), there must have been vast affluence of such information flowing down toward the second century. And no doubt there everywhere was abundance of written materials for history of that ministry, whether narratives of its action or abstracts of its discourses, as these (Luke i. 2) had been “declared” or “delivered” in apostolic teachings. Yet, from the day of John’s death, it seems as if that great stream had either ceased to flow, or disappeared in the earth like Abana and Pharpar. All real information regarding that ministry, beyond what we have in the Gospels, disappears completely, as the men who were not with Noah in his ark are absent from his landing and sacrifice at Ararat, or as the Nile flood vanishes from the face of that land which it has covered as an inland sea (Nahum iii. 8). How is that disappearance, which left only this fourfold Gospel as a narrow strip of River Nile, to be reasonably accounted for as an historical fact? By (shall we say 2) the fact of the appearance, in the first century, of a sunrise causing disappearance of the stars, in the form of genuine apostolic T8a THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. written accounts of the great ministry? These, received in the first century, where there was ample opportunity and power of testing their genuineness, would be consequently received—as in fact they were received—in the generations following. And disappearance, of multitudinous promiscuous accounts, was distinctly a Christian interest of truth, if there came in place of those accounts a sufficient selection or digest authen- ticated by the character of apostolicity. The disappearance, or prevention, of multitudinous or promiscuous publication is distinctly intimated by two of the evangelists (John xx. 30, 31; Luke i. 1-4) as being a contemplated effect of their labour. Without reference to any formal prohibition of unauthorised Scriptures, a feeling of religious reverence, toward a Scripture as apostolic, appears incidentally in the Roman Clement's letter to the Corinthian Church (a.p. 96 2), and in Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians (circa ap. 108); and no doubt “the Scriptures,” to which Polycarp and his fellow-“ elders” are by Ireneeus represented as conforming in their reminiscences, were apostolic. Such a feeling, toward the authorised apostolic records once published, might operate in causing discontinuance of “use” of private accounts of the subjects of them. Moreover, the authorised records, on their appearance, no doubt eagerly waited for, would be found complete for the purpose of information while also of guaranteed reliableness, so as to make the unauthorised accounts to be practically valueless. And we have to remember that in that age the Christian community, not—as we see in the apostolic fathers —much disposed or not much gifted in the direction of literary publication, were not in a condition for occupying themselves, like an antiquarian society, with the collection and preservation of private writings, which now had sunk to the level of mere literary curiosities. The suggestion is countenanced by another fact, perhaps even more remarkable, namely, that with reference to the apostles and their work there is hardly anything of real authenticated information extant beyond what is recorded im our existing New Testament Scripture. There are one or two in- significant scraps of post-apostolic tradition regarding John that may be regarded as possibly historical, and some legends regarding Paul and Peter which illustrate only the condition a aoe ee Ss ee THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 183 of mind in which they originated. And Eusebius has trans- mitted from Papias some golden fragments of information * that bears directly on the state of things in the apostolic age, and is of singular value for true historical criticism relatively to authorship of the Gospels. But as compared with the New Testament information regarding the apostles and their work, these things are only as a few straws on the surface of a deep stream, Substantially, the New Testament information regard- ing the apostolic epoch includes all the real information about it that is known to have been extant in the world at any time since the close of the first century. It is not likely that with reference to the apostles and their work there ever existed such a superabundant affluence of unauthorised written accounts, as might have occasioned embarrassment of riches to a Theophilus, calling for a digestive ability such as Luke’s (Acts i. 1); the perils that called for a book of Zhe Acts are more likely to have been from deficiency of private or local information regarding the great campaign as a whole than from unmanageable excessiveness of detailed information. But, whatever private or local records there may have been, and whatever of oral tradition, regarding the apostolic age at the departure of the apostle, they, too, from that day onward to this hour are lost from the view of history. And at the close of the second century they are visibly gone from human memory. What remains in the Church’s mind, as the treasure of apostolic wisdom that has been kept and carried so as now to survive all the fiery trials of the century that is closing, is only the collection of apostolic Scriptures which are to be the received canon in the following ages (our existing canon). Here, too, there may have been operative, as in arduous campaigning, a sifting process, of leaving behind whatever is worse than useless (impedimenta), because it is only needless baggage. There presumably was also in operation through the second century, what we saw near the opening of it, a feeling of religious reverence toward Scriptures as apostolic, which in the second century takes the action of effectively, though it should be informally, placing those Scriptures on a level with the Old Testament oracles as ruling faith. We are 1 See below, pp. 208, ete. 184 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. not aware of any other plausible suggestion to account for the disappearance of all extra-scriptural information regarding the primeval Christianity (excepting some notices by heathen writers). And if the true explanation be what we have suggested, then the disappearance is a distinct proof of the apostolic authorship of our New Testament generally, and of our Gospels in particular. In this relation, all pretension to “ ecclesiastical” tradition, supplementary to New Testament information, is put out of court by historical fact ; as even the more plausible refinement on the pretension, which is a virtual abandonment of it,—the hypothesis’ of a traditionary “development” of apostolic doctrine,—is discredited by the demonstrable fact, that every heretofore proposed addition to the apostolic doctrine re- corded in Scripture is, either (perhaps) a mere exposition of that scriptural doctrine, or (more probably) a corruption of it. And it is very remarkable that, through a generation of Christians who” had feasted on the reminiscences of such as Polycarp regarding their hearing of apostles, we do not learn anything of what the apostles actually said on such occasions, remembered with such vividness by loving and revering hearts. We now re- member that Polycarp’s reminiscences wereall carefully in accord- ance with the Scriptures. And we ask ourselves, May not his living tradition have been intended for only the transition-period of his lifetime, leaving for after-times the Scriptures alone ? The lamp-lights of a city may disappear in the morning daylight, not simply through process of nature, but by action of an ordaining will. And there is at least an appearance of purposing will in the complete non-appearance, at the opening of the second century, of non-scriptural particulars of infor- mation regarding the apostolic age, information that surely must have existed in the Christian mind represented by the apostolic fathers beyond what is recorded in our apostolic Scriptures. Whether there may not be a quality in those canonical books, by means of which the Christian mind was led divinely to a selection of their green pastures, we have already made some inquiry (Essay II.). We will not now inquire whether there may not have been in some way a divine revelation of injunction to extinguish the city lamps. 1 Greek for guess. 2 See above, p. 149. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 185 But here are the four little books themselves. And here they have been since the close of the second century, held in the Church’s bosom as “ unquestionably,’ alone, her sacred Evangels, exclusively her treasure of priceless apostolic infor- mation regarding “the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ ” (2 Pet. i. 16). They were so held by her as having come down through the century along with her, in the life- stream of her own personal history, from the hands of apostles and their authorised associates. The authors of those books were either infamous impostors, or apostles and their authorised associates. But no such impostor could write any one of these books. And, as we saw, a worldful of impostors could not impose & spurious gospel on the second century Church. It is an intrinsically credible tradition, but without any trustworthy historical authentication, that apostles were in the habit of sending written accounts of the great ministry to Churches that had been founded by them,’ for perpetuation of the apostolic testimony in which the foundation had so been laid. They could write, about themselves, about Churches and leaders, about individual private Christians, about a runaway slave. They well knew, as appears in every word of their teaching, ever resting on the ancient Scriptures, the fundamental importance, for perpetuation of the religion as well as for solid foundation of it, of such a record of the apostles as that of Moses and the prophets. Is it reasonable to suppose that they on whom (Rev. xxi. 14) the whole future of the new Jerusalem was dependent, would completely fail, with many able hands in readiness for the work, to pro- vide a record of those things (1 John i. 1) which they were declaring orally to that passing generation; so that, with reference to the one foundation of man’s hope in God, the apostolic testimony might not pass away with the passing apostolic breath (cp. 1 Pet. i. 24, 25, and 2 Pet. i. 12-15)? But there is no such record, and there never has been, unless it be Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Such a provision on the apostles’ part would be a carrying out of the distinctive purpose of the existence of the apostolic office and order. “Apostle” means literally emissary. But Paul and the Twelve were emissaries in the specific sense of 1 Cp. the “foundation ” at 1 Cor. iii. 8-15 and Rom. xv. 20. 186 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. being Christ's apostles: as (Heb. iii, 1) Christ Himself is emissary of the Father in the specific sense of being “the apostle” as well as “the high priest” of our profession. If He be as the sun (John viii. 12), the apostle of the invisible God whose nature is light, they are (John i. 16) as the planetary stars, reflecting the sun’s light received out of his fulness. And how can they be this, so long as the world stands, if they do not continue to bear witness regarding the earthly ministry of Christ, declaring what they have seen and heard, in order that our fellowship may be with them, as theirs is with God the Father and that Saviour Son? A means of their doing that thoroughly is, we saw, the four Gospels. But no other means of their doing it has existed upon earth since they departed from the earth. Paul’s case in this relation was exceptional (1 Cor. xv. 8). And in the modesty of self-depreciation in his reference to the specialty of his own case as abnormal, we may perceive a recognition of what was requisite as the qualification for apostleship in the normal or ordinary case, namely (Acts i. 21, 22), a first-hand personal acquaintance with Christ in the course of His earthly ministry (John xiv. 25, 26, xv. 26, 27). Such a knowledge at first-hand had to be laid in the founda- tion of God’s kingdom among mankind. To Paul, such knowledge was not given, though (2 Cor. iv. 16) conceivably he may have seen Christ in the flesh, when he, being yet an enemy, was reconciled to God by the death of His Son. It is true that he was a qualified first-hand witness of the grand fact of the resurrection of Christ, which (Acts 1. 22) itself was a sort of summary qualification for apostleship. It is true, also, that if he thus could do nothing as an apostolic witness regarding gospel history, as an apostolic witness regarding the gospel-doctrine of grace he laboured more abundantly than all the Twelve; so that now his writings are, more than all others, the theological text-book of the Christian world. But still, the theology has to pro- ceed on that “ foundation ” of historical fact, regarding which, excepting at one decisive point, he was not a qualified witness, And the fact is that in all his Epistles there is not one morsel of biography of Christ, in the ordinary sense of the word biography. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 187 Nor, excepting one short sentence preserved by Paul himself, is there a morsel of biography of Christ in any of the Epistles of the Twelve, or in Revelation, or in the Acts. Still, in the apostolic possession there was, of highest quality, abundant materials (John xx. 30) for the biography of bio- graphies—the history of that individual human life in which (1 John i, 2) “ the life” of all “ was manifested,” the narrative of the living and dying here of the very “Prince of Life ” (Acts iii: 15). And, we now remember, notwithstanding the uniquely great office of Paul’s apostolic witness-bearing (Acts ix. 15; Eph. ni. 8), the distinctive witness-bearing of an apostle was not theological but historical. In theology—the exposition of the meaning of the revelation — the prophets (Eph. ii, 20) are on a line with the apostles, and an Apollos may come to be associate of Paul. The one thing (2 Pet. 1. 16; 1 John i, 1, 3) in respect of which apostles differ from all other men, and from angels and archangels (Luke 1, 11.; Jude 9), is, their being the “chosen” witnesses of God regard- ing facts in the history of Godman’s earthly ministry. We saw how they can have perfectly well provided for perpetua- tion of that witness-bearing, so as evermore to be on “twelve ” thrones (cp. Rev. vii. 4, xxi. 14) judging all the tribes of God’s true Israel (Phil. iii. 3), swpposing the apostolic author- ship of our existing Evangels. But if these be not genuine apostolic writings, then surely the apostles have failed to carry out in perpetuity the fundamentally distinctive purpose of thevr own existence in the world (cp. John xviii. 37). Of the manner of their personal activity we have no full sample, excepting in the case of Paul (the Petrine movement in Palestine before the time of the Jerusalem Synod was only inaugural). It thus is from his case that we have to learn what was the apostolic mind as to our present matter. We have indications of a like mind on the part of John and Peter. And in Paul’s activity, full as he was of manifold personal labours in his evangelisation and in his care of all the Churches, we mark how very large a place is given to writing, about all matters of doctrine and discipline, for the “watering” or edification of the Churches once “ planted ” or founded. And the scriptural provision thus made (cp. 2 Pet. iil. 15, 16) for the first age is a perpetual possession to all 188 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. ages. Is it reasonable to suppose that the whole apostolic order completely neglected all scriptural provision for future “planting” or foundation of Churches on the rock (Matt. xvi. 18) of apostolic testimony regarding the historical manifesta- tion of Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John xx. 31)? Now, where is that provision, where has it ever been, unless % be in our Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ? APPENDIX: on the New Testament words for miracle. “Miracle” means wonder It comes to us from the Latin moraculum, which was formed ? for this use—of signifying that the distinctive nature of this kind of work is extraordinari- ness (as 18 maintained by Augustine in a discussion of the matter—De Zrin.). The Greek word for a “ wonder” (¢hawma) occurs in the New Testament only at one place (Rev. xvii. 7), where it means “astonishment ”—not the fact of marvellous- ness in the occurrence, but the feeling of it in the beholder’s mind (see Mark vi. 6). But a word that means extraordin- ariness in the character of the occurrence may here be legitimately brought into use of scriptural doctrine, though that use of the word is not exemplified in Scripture.® The Greek New Testament words for this kind of work (“ extraordinary ” providence) are as follows :— Teras—“a terrific thing”—is what often stands where our version has “miracle” or “wonder.” It is appropriate to the awfulness (cp. Gen. xxviii. 17) of supernaturalism in extra- ordinary manifestation (Luke v. 8, see ver. 26). Jt was not employed by Christ with reference to His own “works.” But He otherwise employed it twice (John iv. 48), to indicate the sort of coarse wonder (“prodigious!”) that might suit the carnal mind of Jews (1 Cor. i. 22; John vi. 26), and (Matt. xxiv. 24) to describe the future wonders of false prophets and false Christs. (N.B. that—cp. 2 Thess. ii. 9-11—a “lying wonder ” is not necessarily unreal. It may be a real wonder that lies; like a sign-post pointing wrong, or—Col. ii. 8—the falsely true light of a wrecker’s lure: as, 2 Tim. iv. 1-4, in the case of a minister preaching “ another gospel.”) DyNAMIS—“ power,” eg. at Acts i. 8,in the sense of force, not of authority (exousia, e.g. at Acts i. 7)—is what our version makes “mighty work.” Jt was hardly ever employed by Christ (e.g. Matt. vii. 22). With reference to His own “ works,” He 1 Wunder is the German word for “ miracle.” 2 From mirari, “to wonder.” 3 Cp. the word “ Trinity.” THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 189 employed it (Matt. xi. 20-23) in reproaching for impenitence the cities where most of them had been done: as if to say (cp. Luke xxiv. 25) that their hard carnality of heart.had re- sisted even the blasting physical force of that external evidence! We noted? that His customary description of them, simply as “His works,’ is suggestive (John xiv. 10) of an effortless ease of Omnipotence in the Son of man; which is perhaps con- trasted with a toilsomeness of labouring on the part of other wonder-workers.?, Thus at 2 Cor. xii. 12, Paul’s “patience,” a soldierly endurance—< holding on”—as in toil of battle or campaign: like a strong man’s endurance (Heb. xii. 2, dmitatio Christt) in a foot-race for a prize’ The description, as simply “works,” leaving out of view the character of super- naturalism in the miracles of Christ, consequently gives pro- minence to their moral character, as on His part proceeding from deliberate free agency (not as mere sparks of power in emanation as from an electric vase); and also and especially 4 their covenant character, as being done in obedience to the Father, on the part (Phil. ii. 6-11) of Him who, by nature the eternal Son of God, for our redemption “ became obedient unto death,” being “found in fashion as aman,” “made under the law.” They thus are “His works,” the “works which His Father had given Him to do,” as being comprehended in that whole “work,” to complete which was His covenant engage- ment as our security.® SEMEION—“ sign ” (cp. Ex. iv. 8, 9, vii. 3; Gen. i 14)—1%s the chosen word of Christ for description of His own “works” ag evidential. Our version in some places has “ miracle ” instead of “sign ” (on which account it is censured by Trench—On the Miracles of Christ—as so far spoiling the sense). “Sign” re- presents the fact that the work is not mere monstrum? of supernaturalism in manifestation, but a pointed manifestation, significant of His mind whose “finger” is here. Still, mani- festation, unmistakable as the handwriting on Belshazzar’s wall, in a clear distinctness from such “lying wonders” as those of Egyptian magicians, is necessary, even for the effect of pointing, to show whose is the finger, or what the uplifted 1 See above, p. 178. 2 Greek, thaumaturgists. * See Elisha toiling at the miracle (2 Kings iv. 35); and the “good man” of the Old Testament strongly running to shield the king’s heart against bad news (2 Sam. xviii. 23). * John iv. 34—where observe that His work is also wages; cp. Isa. liii, 11. 5 At John xvii. 4 the “finished” of our version is real translation, and the “accomplished” of R.V. is only commentary. ® Pointed “ manifestation ”—“ the finger of God” (Luke xi. 20), 7 Monstrare, “to show ”—What ? 190 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. arm or the outstretched hand. The highest “manifestation ” is in Christ’s rising from the dead. The most wonderfully pathetic pointing is! when He goes on showing the fact of His resurrection, through production of “many infallible proofs”—plain unmistakable marks of personal identity, eg. on “ His hands and His side.” ? THE FULL ARRAY of the above names for miracle appears only in the Scriptures connected with the (earlier part of the) middle- apostolic age (Acts ii. 22; 2 Thess. il. 9; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Rom. xv. 19). First appearing in Peter’s fundamental pronunciamento of the new kingdom of God, it thereafter is found only in Paul’s Epistles: first in what is all but the earliest of them (2 Thess.), and after that almost simultaneously in two of the four “ unquestionable” Epistles representing his mid career (2 Cor., Rom.). Here we note the fact, as bearing on right use of names for miracle, that our theological terminology ought to be based on the usage, not of Christ in the period of His humilia- tion, but of the Holy Ghost (John xvi. 14) in the apostles (1 Cor. ii. 13) giving them “utterance” for glorious manitfes- tation of the Lord Jesus to mankind. And as to the apostolic usage in these four places, we observe.—(1) That the whole array of names for miracle is first employed once (Acts i, 22) with reference to the evidential “works” of Christ ;* then once (2 Thess, ii. 9; ep. Rev. xvii. 14 and Matt. xxiv, 24) with reference to “lying wonders” of Satan; then ¢wice (2 Cor. xi. 12,13; Rom. xv. 19) with reference to credential “signs ” of an apostle: not only Paul in particular (Rom. xv.), but before that, allapostlesassuch.4 (2) That the clear distinctness, thus appear- ing in the earliest and the early-middle apostolic age, of such a settled use and wont of language relatively to miracle, is proof ® of a clearly defined belief in miracle as having exvsted in the Christian mind ever since first the Church was formed in the faith of Christ. (3) That Satanic miracles are spoken of with the same great array of names as those of Christ and of apostles. They are so named as next to those of Christ in order of time. And they alone are spoken of as in the future: 1 Cp. the importunate widow and 2 Cor. viii. 9. 2 R.V. spoils the great sentence at Acts i. 3 by unwarrantably diluting tekmeria into (colourless) “proofs,” while neglecting to mend the A.V. “showed Himself” into “ went on showing Himself,” or “went on appearing” —Greek, optanomenos. 3 At Matt. xi. 2 the meaning is, “ the miracles of the Messiah. 41 Cor. xii., where the expression—lit. “the apostle’s sign,” cp. “ the martyr’s crown,” “the scholar’s melancholy ”—has reference to the species of officer, the order of apostolate, as being “ sealed.” 5 See above, p. 159. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 191 the only post-apostolic miracles that have the great array of names are Satanic miracles—not unreal, but fatally misleading (cp. Matt. xxiv. 24; Rev. xiii. 13, xvi. 14). Fulfilled prediction of the incalculable is an evidential “sign”’ —“wonder of wisdom” (Ex. iii. 12; cp. John xi. 19, xiv. 28). There may be a “sign” that is not a “wonder” (Gen. 1. 16). And in order to evidential significance there has to be the “wonder.” But mere “ wonder ” without significance or pointed- ness of meaning, is a heathenish blind force gone a-wandering, like the giant Polyphemus,— monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cut lumen ademptum (“a frightful, shapeless, huge, and eyeless monster”). Hahibition of blind wonders (“thou hast no speculation in thine eye”)—supernaturalism without God— was characteristic of the vile infamous géete of heathenism (the “seducers” at 2 Tim. ui. 13). The mere thaumaturgist (“ wonder-worker”) who trades in such things, to make men “stare and gasp” (Acts viii. 10), is only a showman, like Simon Magus or an unbelieving pulpit orator. There is need of the teras; for, in the teaching through miracle, as otherwise, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (cp. Heb. v. 7). At the same time the miracle often has a teaching of its own ; multiplying the bread shows Jehovah-Jireh (Matt. xvi. 9), and Naaman’s baptismal healing spoke almost expressly of the open fountain of salvation from sin. The seal may thus be itself a messenger. 3. The individual Gospels (Kvangelia). Battles are sometimes won before they are begun; as when Simon de Montfort, seeing the strategy of Prince Edward’s approaching, perceived that the Barons’ cause was lost. And our historical approaches to the present point may enable us to make short work of the task here remaining for us. The Gospels now collected were originally not even a collection such as the fourfold evangelium that went along with “the apostle” to form the (New) “Testament” or “instrument” at the close of the second century. They natively are separate books on one subject—unlike “ the five books of Moses,” which, on various subjects, natively are one book. And, if we may believe relative tradition, they were published in widely separate regions’ of the world; so that it may have been late 1 Matthew in Palestine, Mark in Rome or Egypt, Luke in Greece, and John in Asia Minor, 192 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. in that century before it was a habit, even of those who had them all in possession, to bind them together as one book, and give them one collective name. But we have seen enough of the relative state of Christianity in that century not to feel dis- couraged by this appearance of dispersion. And in particular we remember what we saw in the then condition of the Church as “catholic” (= world-wide in Ireneus), namely, its being a world-embracing network of organic sensibility, in which every part is in sympathetic vital connection with the whole; while to every part of that whole the fact of the existence of a Gospel in any place would be a matter of profoundly felt vitality of interest far transcending the interest which a nation of misers would feel in the possession of a casket full of kohinoors, When we go into particulars of inquiry, we find matters clearing up so as to give us most gratifying experience of the truth that “the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” Thus! as to Luke, we saw how, where Tertullian’s diligence cast his bread upon the waters, scholars now have found it after many days, in the shape of identification of this Gospel as early as A.D, 140 (so that unbelieving critics have to “go up higher” a good deal). At that date it is turned to a misuse that implies an honest previous use of it as an apostolic evangel among Christians as far back as memory then reached, that is, back into the apostolic age; while the demonstrated existence of even this one Gospel in the apostolic age suffices, when fairly considered, to destroy whole libraries of what calls itself historical criticism of the New Testament. In particular, it destroys the one real ground of much of what is called biblical criticism,—namely, the belief that a Gospel such as this really cannot have been written in the lifetime of Christians of the primeval period, because this would imply that they had a full belief in the miracles of Christ, which would be an historical proof of the reality of miracle. So, again, with reference to Matthew and Mark, we shall2 find historical proof of the existence of writings by these men with reference to the Saviour’s earthly ministry, that were publicly known as theirs among Christians as early, say, as A.D. 125, in circumstances of clear conclusiveness to the same general effect. And relatively to John,’ whose genuineness has of late years been matter of burning controversy among the 1 See above, p. 129. 2 See below, pp. 208, ete. * Regarding whom in particular see below, pp. 193, ete. THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 193 -eritics, we may find reason to believe that the fourth Gospel can have been written by no other man that ever lived than the epistethios—< the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who (whence that Greek description of him) had leaned “on the breast” of God incarnate, and who in the Jourth Gospel never once is named.* And here at the outset we may begin to gather up the threads of our inquiry with an exercise on__ THE RECEIVED NUMBER OF THE GOSPELS, namely, four.—This bears especially on John. For if there be only three evangels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke will suffice to make up the collective evangel; while if there be a vacant fourth place, the existing John is a most powerful claimant for that place, were it only on the principle of detur digniori—*« the crown to the fit head.” No other book than this has ever been seen or heard of that will fit into the place of a fourth Gospel,—even apart from the special requirement that it. shall be a work worthy of the eprstethios, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And we might begin our proof of the number four with production of distinct evidence of the early existence of a Johannine Gospel, trusting the synoptists for completion of the number. For instance, as we saw,? not only the orthodox Theophilus expressly names John as the author of a Gospel about A.p. 180. The heretics in Hippolytus are found « using” a Johannine Gospel up as far as to within a quarter of a century of the apostle’s death,—that is to say, up to a time when any such writing thus ascribed to him would unfailingly be well known about by loving disciples and friends, such as Polycarp and his fellow-“ elders,”—perhaps as far west as Lyons, where flourished the martyr-bishop Pothinus, born as early as A.D. 182.3 Indirect evidence is found in Justin Martyr, who does not name this Gospel, or any other, but whose mind and speech appear to be strongly under influence of it as well asof N eoplatonism ; also in The Apocalypse, quoted by Justin, by the Lyonese con- fessors, and by Ireneus, while it bears interna] evidence of, being written by the same hand as our fourth Gospel, though, in some respects unlike it; and in 1 John, which all but “unquestionably” must have had the same author as that fourth Gospel,—so that the evidence fora Johannine authorship: of this great Epistle is at the same time evidence of the Johannine authorship of the Gospel. Another line of proof is, production of evidence directly 1N.B., as of the same significance in our present question, that the Baptist in the fourth Gospel is named simply John, as if there had been no other John worth naming in a sacred evangel ! ? See above, p. 130. ® At his martyrdom, a.p. 177, he was over ninety years of age. 13 194 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. regarding the number (four). We glanced at a fanciful reasoning of Irenzus regarding that number precisely, no more and no fewer, but exactly four. His reasons are found, deep and high, in the physical nature of things mundane, and in the metaphysical constitution of the universe. And they prove that, as the excellent Homer occasionally sleeps,! so a revered father of the Church may conceivably go somewhat “off his head.” But their very weakness has a power, more than the logical force of twenty Aristotles, in demonstration of the fact of exactly four, as the number of the Gospels that, like ten as the number of the Commandments, was “unquestionable” among all Chris- tians, not only in the days of Irenzeus himself, but as far back as his knowledge went,—that is, into the apostolic age (¢.g., through Polycarp and his fellow-“ elders ”). For if there had anywhere been a doubt about the matter, he would not have so reasoned, as when “the poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.” And when we remember what Irenzeus elsewhere tells us about his great carefulness (as became a pupil of Polycarp), relative to the apostolic Scriptures, in the present weakness of his reasoning we see strong pre- sumptive proof of the Johannine authorship of our fourth Gospel. Another such proof we glanced at has even more of curious interest. Until but yesterday it threatened “the simple” with much weariness to the flesh from erudition.? Diatessaron (“ all through four”) is not so simple as it looks. Dr. White of Oxford, in giving that as title to his Harmony of the Gospels, no doubt expected to be understood as meaning that their number is four, by an amalgam or mosaic work of which he makes up one composite evangel.® But some deep “scholars ” found that diatessaron was a term of musical art, referring to harmony of sounds; and suggested that Tatian (who——witness his heretical finale—had a strain of wildness in him) may have simply adopted the word with a fanciful reference to its general meaning of harmony, though the number of his gospels had been only three. (The present writer was eye-witness of “a quartette of three,” advertisement of a musical entertainment on board the Jessie Readman of Glasgow, A.D. 1881.) But we need not go further in what now would be a waste, and might be an ambitious vain display of erudition about this matter. A very recent discovery, of virtually the Diatessaron itself, has made the matter as clear as Edie Ochiltree made the mysterious A.D.L.L. with his “pretorian here, pretorian there, 1 was at the biggin’ o’t.” The work itself bears witness that jouw was 1 Horace, Ars Poetica. 2 Professor Mahaffy’s letter to Salmon, Books of the New Testament. $ Cp. a musical “harmony” produced by jumbling four vozces into one ! ~ THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 195 the number of Tatian’s gospels; and this in a work prepared, say, A.D. 170, for public use of the Syrian Church, is really conclu- sive proof that four must notoriously have been the number of the Gospels from the beginning of Christian history.1 And this carries up into the apostolic age, not only four as the number of the Gospels, but the four Gospels bodily. For it was not the mere number of the books, but the books themselves, that were “harmonised.” Tatian, before drifting into heresy, was a pupil of Justin Martyr (mart. civca A.D. 160), who was a Syrian by birth; and his “ Assyrian” pupil’s work would be serviceable to Semitic churches far beyond the “whole world ” of Augustus Cesar (¢.g. in Babylon regions ; ep. 1 Pet. v. 13). Further, at av. 160, an apostolic father, Papias, was probably alive on earth; while another, Polycarp, a thirty years’ contemporary of the Apostle J ohn, had only five years before been taken from the Church on earth by a martyr’s death. In relation to such a matter of public use and profoundest common interest as that of sacred Scriptures, the memory of a whole community is tenacious. The Church mind which received four Gospels as “ unquestionably ” apostolic at A.D. 160, may be safely trusted as capable of reaching a century back (7.e. beyond the birth of Polycarp, A.D. 69 2). A similar reasoning might be employed with reference to the Peschito, Syriac, and Old Latin versions of the New Testament,? which are placed provisionally at a.p. 150; and with reference to the Muratori fragment,? in whose pathetically derelict condition “the gnawing tooth of time,” while effacing the names of more than one evangelist, yet had—like the relative Irenzean reasoning of that same time—left it a clearly evidenced fact that the number of the Gospels was exactly four. WHEN COMPARED WITH ONE ANOTHER, our existing Gospels yield the following results :— . 1. The supplementary nature of John. It really gives, on a plan of its own (John xx. 30, 31), a view of the great ministry in its totality; that is, the plan of illustrating the Saviour’s “glory” of person (John i. 14) and work (John ii. 11. John is called “the divine” =the Theologian, because he is the evangelist who brings into view the godhead—theos —of the Word—logos). His Gospel may be regarded as a “pragmatic” history, or as an_ historical lecture like } This would be known about by Christians who had not all the Gospels’ in their own hands. Every Israelite knew the number of branches of the golden candlestick in the sanctuary that could be entered only by priests. 2 See above, p. 131. 8 See above, p, 132. 196 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Deuteronomy. But, quite independently of all theorising explanations, the manifest fact is that John is a supplement to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, For instance—(1) in important particulars it gives what they omit, and omits what they give, and here and there speaks about a matter in a manner which implies that this evangelist knows that his readers are aware of what is said about the subject in our first three Gospels ; and (2) the theatre of events, which, in the synoptists mainly Galilee, in this fourth Gospel is almost exclusively Judea. Correspondingly, there is in them no such internal evidence of leaning of theirs on the fourth Gospel (hence, inquiry into the origin of gospels has to look at the first three evangels as chronologically the primary formation in the evangel). At the same time the writer evidently does not borrow from them, but (1 John i. 1-3) “ declares what he has seen and heard.” 2 As to the “connected view” of the great ministry, with a reference to which our first three Gospels are named synoptist. A synopsis! in the sense of—not simply conspectus, but >— “seeing all together,” in the present case means that the three evangelists have a common connected view of the earthly ministry of Christ (Matt. 1. 18; Mark i. 1; Luke i. 1-4). And, in fact, they have in common a connected view of it, quite different from the Johannine view of it, though not really discrepant from this view. The ministry, in their view, is Galilean until it approaches the Lord’s last sufferings at Jerusalem; and they hardly refer to Judean labours which mainly constitute the ministry in view of the fourth evangelist. On the other hand, the first three have sub- stantially the same representation of the ministry as a whole, though Matthew and Luke have information which Mark has not regarding what occurred before the public ministry began (Acts i. 21,22), and Luke has a large section (chaps. xi.—Xxvili.) that is not coincident with sections in Matthew or Mark. While the appropriate common theme of all the Gospels is, the ministry of Jesus from John’s baptism to the Olivet ascension, the evangelists have specially in common a view which, while not exhibiting the Judean labour which occupies the fourth Gospel, yet really shows the ministry of Christ the Son of God. 3. The difference of view between the synoptists and the 1 Greek for connected view. 2 Liddell and Scott in verbo. eS = ee THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 197 fourth Gospel may—apart from the distinctive nature of the fourth Gospel as manifestly supplementary to the others—tc accounted for—ain accordance with the express declaration of purpose in the fourth Gospel (John xx. 31)—by a difference wm the respective points of view. (1) In fact, the difference of view is what may be represented as follows :—Of the fourfold whole evangel, a common title might be ImmanueL—* God with us” ;—since the common subject of all the four evangels is the ministry (Messiahism) of Jesus the Son of God. And specifically, the sub-title of the fourth Gospel would fall to be, HI—“God”—because what it characteristically brings into view is (John i. 1, 14, 18) the godhead of “ the Word of life” (1 John i. 1); while of the synoptical three the sub- title would be, Jmmanu—*with us”—because what they characteristically bring into view is (Matt. i, 18-25) the manhood of (Mark i. 1; Luke i. 35) the divine Messiah. Correspondingly (2) such a difference in the respective purposes or natures of the Gospels—of the synoptists, on the one hand, as distinguished from the fourth Gospel on the other—would be in keeping with the received view as to their authorship. The Johannine representation of facts in the great ministry is* really distinguished from the synoptical representation by its “pragmatism” of employing the facts for exhibition of Immanuel’s godhead.? Plato was called “the divine” on account of the sublimity of his own speculations under the form of Socratic dialogue, while this evangelist has no speculation of his own, but simply (John i. 16) is a mirror- like reflection of the sun-like “glory” (cp. Rev. i. 10) he sees (cp. 1 John i. 1-3) in Christ the Lord. Yet Plato, in respect of his representation of Socrates, as compared with Xenophon’s representation of their common master, illustrates the difference between the Christ of the fourth Gospel and the Christ of the synoptists.2 Plato brought into view the 1 Cp. the historical résumé in Deuteronomy. 2 Cp. the theological “asides” in Deut. vii., viii., ix., xi. 3 There is a similar difference between the Christ of the other Johannine Scriptures and the Christ of the non-Johannine Acts and Epistles ; though naturally not as strongly marked, since (on the received view as to authorship) these non-Johannine Scriptures represent the transition period, in the middle-apostolic age, from the synoptist point of view to that in the fourth Gospel. 198 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. higher speculative side of the Socratic wisdom,’ while? what Xenophon brought distinctively into view was, the homely practical applications of that wisdom, as of a word made flesh and dwelling among us. Yet his Socrates is the Socrates of Plato. On account of a similar difference, a second century father ® characterised the fourth as “the spiritual Gospel,” in contradistinction from the synoptical as “ the carnal” Gospels.* A homely view, such as the synoptical, is what would have met the wants (Luke i. 1-4) of recent converts in the Petro- Pauline period of the apostolic age; while, a generation later, after such theologising as we see in the Paulino-Petrine Epistles, what further was needed was a theologos view (John 1S AL Pees ely), 4. The synoptical wnity of representation is accompanied with a remarkable diversity in respective representations on the part of the individual synoptists. The question, what to think of this diversity in unity, constitutes a greatly vexed problem of biblical criticism ® which we will approach (as becomes the matter in question, cp. Ex. iii, 5) tentatively and with caution. And (1) on the one hand, we observe as a fact, that the unity of the three substantially extends to the whole representation of the great ministry, and is in such a measure a unity in detailed forms of expression—even individualities— as apparently to demand the supposition of a common author- ship ; as if, more or less, either the respective evangelists had copied or used one another’s Gospels, or all three had copied or used a common original. But, on the other hand (2), we observe as a fact that in every one of them there is all- pervasively a natural freedom of personal manner in repre- sentation, a fresh, living, spontaneous individuality of utter- ance, such as apparently to demand the supposition that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the works of three really and completely independent authors. And (3) we will venture upon a tentative “theory,” ® or conjectural “ hypothesis,”” of the way and manner in which, or the process through which 1 Cp. a planet’s face toward the sun. 2 Cp. the earthward aspect of a planet. 5 Clement of Alexandria. * See “annocent carnality ” at Heb. ix. 10. * =Judgment as to Scripture, 1 Cor. i. 15. ® Greek for view. 7 Greek for guess. es ——— THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 199 the synoptical evangel may, conceivably, have so originated, as to present on the face of it that remarkable diversity in unity, or unity in diversity, which thus is found in the three evangels as a fact. That provisional hypothesis, for bringing the matters in question into shape for judgment, we will place as follows :— Conjectural representation.i—After the great Pentecost, the apostles, considering the fundamental importance to all nations through all ages (Matt. xxviii. 18-20), of their testimony (Acts i. 8) regarding (vers. 21, 22) the earthly ministry of Christ, and (vers. 3,4) having in view the “commandments ” which, in the forty days after His resurrection, He had given them concerning the kingdom of God,—conferred about that testimony, and agreed upon @ common ground and substance of aw (which may—or may not—have been taken down in writing; cp. Ex. xvi. 14, xxiv. 4, 7, xxxiv. 27). It represented the collective memory of the college of apostles. Thereafter any one apostle individually, in his apostolic witness-bearing with reference to the great ministry, would, while exercising his own discretion,? and always speaking in his own natural manner, nevertheless ever have regard to that ground and substance, of common apostolic testimony, that had been agreed upon,—as defining the substantive evangel,—that is, “ declaring” the cycle of those things in the history of the Lord’s ministry, regarding which authoritative —ve. apostolic — information ought to be laid before men in the founding of God’s visible kingdom among mankind. That common apostolic testimony would thus be a common basis for the particular testimonies of individual apostles, “ going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature.”? A hearer of any one of the separate apostolic “teachings,” variously shaped in wise accordance with variety in circumstances, would thus in reality learn through that apostle the (evangeliwm) common substance of apostolic information, which went into every one of those (evangelia ?) particular testimonies. A Mark or a Luke would have, in the shape of (Luke i. 1) notes or digests of those particular testimonies, abundant materials for an evangel— “according to” Luke or Mark—obtained from witnesses at first- hand (Luke i. 2); and a Matthew, in framing his Gospel, would 1 Cp. as to a witness’s memory, above, pp. 104, etc. 2 As to Peter’s thus exercising his own individual discretion in his “teachings” (2 Pet. i. 1, 16) heard by Mark, see below, p. 218. 3 In the light of the suggestion of a thus common “ declaration,” note the significance of the “we” at 1 John i 1-3 and 2 Pet. i. 16-18. 200 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. not be obliged as an evangelist to restrict his narrative to those matters exclusively which had come into his personal know- ledge in the course of his training for apostleship as an original eye-witness and minister of the word; for instance, he, like his fellow-evangelists Mark and Luke, could see the Transfiguration through the eyes of his brother-apostles Peter, James, and John. This perhaps would suffice to account for the twofold character of the Synoptical Gospels, as on the one hand appearing to have a common original, while on the other hand they, on the face of them, are the productions of three completely independent writers. Thus far there is a parallel in the case of Ephesians (or its duplicate, Colossians) and 1 Peter, which on close inspection are seen to be essentially one and the same Epistle, essentially different from every- thing else in the Bible, while yet every word in the one of them is Paul’s own, and of the other every word is Peter’s own. Beyond this there does not appear to be material for reasonable conjecture ; and where there is not such material— as, in guessing what the Siren sung while the sailors’ ears were sealed—conjecture is at best a symptom of the weak- ness of unwholesome restlessness of curiosity, where strength is restful, as “he that believeth shall not make haste.” The following dlustration of the way in which a writer’s individualism, that in itself is quite insignificant, may—as a feather showing how the wind blows—be put to good use of criticism genuinely “ historical,” is here perhaps not out of place. It is derived from the manner of employing the expression,” “the other side,” in the four Gospels. In New Zealand the ex- pression is an idiom of locality, referring to Australia as beyond the local sea. In Scottish Breadalbane, a similar idiom of locality is, the use of deasrach and tuathrach, as respectively proper names of regions on opposite sides of Loch Tay.+ 1 On the question whether Mark is really a digest of Peter’s “teach- ings,” see above, pp. 99, etc., and below, Essay VI. * Greek, peran. 3 Gaelic for “north side” and “south side.” * A parallel case appears in the order of naming the Anatolian regions at 1 Pet. i. 1, showing that the Epistle was written by one habitually looking westward at Asia Minor, ¢.e. was written at the historical “Babylon” (1 Pet. v. 18); not at the mystical Babylon (Rome), not at some obscure Egyptian Babylon, from which a writer’s outlook on Asia Minor would be eastward. : THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 201 Natural use of such an idiom is a “speech-bewraying” mark of the speaker’s place of upbringing or of long residence. From which, as major premiss, there comes through “the other side,” in the four Gospels, an argument in proof of the genwineness of them all. The expression is employed in them only as an idiom of locality with reference to the east side of the Jordan valley, as contemplated by residents on the west side of that valley. And (1) in the Galilean three it appears frequently, six times in Matthew, six times in Mark, and eight times in John ; while (2) in the non-Galilean Gospel it appears only once (Luke vil. 22)—where it 1s employed, not by Hellenistic Luke, but by Galilean Jesus! It is pathetically interesting to see the fourth Gospel, a generation after Peter and others of the old time (John i. 34, etc., xxi.) are gone the way of all the earth, here marked as coming from one who has a warmer heart for Galilee than even Matthew and Peter.! Can it be that the sublime Zheologus, lingering on our side of the pearly gate of new Jerusalem, is the Galilean Boanerges of two generations ago ? 7.¢, is this writer the (here “ speech-bewrayed ”) Apostle John ? There is reason for inquiring whether Matthew’s Gospel is not partly made up of a previously existing collection of the Lord’s discourses, and for considering the significance of the fact that apparently the long section of Luke, chaps. xi.— XVill., was written irrespectively of the synoptical common groundwork, and of the fact that Mark is visibly charac- terised by absence of discourses except in so far as they are part of the narrated action. But perhaps we have laboured at details at least sufficiently for the purpose of the present essay. And now, taking a parting look at the matter, we may, without falling into Irenzan fancifulness, of lofty speculations regarding “the earth and the world” universally, see a final cause, or purpose, of that diverse-unity of the Gospels, in the requirements of the nature and condition of man, for whom and through whom the Gospels came from God. Those require- ments are—like the ocean—varied yet one. And in order to all-round complete sufficiency of God’s word in these Evangels, perhaps it is best, and was therefore elected, fore- ordained, and provided, that there should be in the one Evangel—(1) a (provincial) simply human gospel by a 1 = Mark, see below, pp. 210, ete. 202 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. (Galilean) fisherman; (2) a (Hebrew) national gospel (“ of the kingdom ”) by an educated native Palestinian deeply grounded in the ancient Scriptures; (3) an (imperial) Gentile gospel by a meet Hellenistic associate of Paul; and (4) a universal gospel by a Plato who does not speculate, but sees all things in the risen Saviour, God Incarnate, remembering (Rev. 1. 5 ; 1 John v. 6) that he leaned on His bosom and is washed from sin in His blood. That might be a way of bringing into existence, through employment of human individualities, what in fact we have in this fourfold Evangel, namely, a perfect human biography of a Saviour who is God. That we have ¢his in the books is felt by all mankind, and the thing so felt, the unity in their variety, is what makes the only real and true “harmony of the Gospels ”—a harmony that writes itself on the heart of every Christian reader, perhaps differently from offered representa- tions of it by some Christian writers. ESS ALY vie SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. In order to concentration of judgment on the question, as coming to a point in this one case, we will endeavour to place it rightly in the ight of relative literary history as now known to us, by means of the following conspectus :— 1. Conspectus of the rise of New Testament literature. We will take as our point of view that middle-apostolic age, where we are placed in affluence of clear light on the state of Christianity by Paul’s “unquestionably” genuine Epistles — Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Here the Johannine Scriptures are not in the range of historical vision If the earlier Scriptures be established independently, the Johannine will be on the way to establish- ment, as the Petro-Pauline period was a spring-summer season of rising and ripening toward a Johannism. Our present 1 Regarding them, see above, pp. 195 ff. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 203 observations on other Scriptures will have primary reference to the Synoptical Gospels, as truly the “ foundation ” Scriptures, though they should not have been the earliest written. And we preface all the detailed notes with saying that, as the fundamental proof of Christianity is (Acts 1. 10) the earthly ministry of Christ, so the leading apologetic of the apostolic age was constituted by the apostolic testimony which is perpetuated in the Clospels. 1. The four Epistles (A.D. 57-601) are, we may provision- ally suppose, by internal evidence shown to have been written in the order,—Gal., 1 Cor., 2 Cor., Rom. By the nature of their contents they are all thrown back into a time before Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem—eg. by the fact appearing at Rom. i, that at this time he had never visited tome, and by the fact (Acts xix. 20) that a visit to that capital was, somewhat later, still only a matter of vague expectation to him. The four Epistles are thus of earlier date than Acts, which (Acts xxiv. 27, xxviii. 30) cannot have been completed until some four years after that visit of his to Jerusalem. They were thus written not later than A.D. 60, which is fixed as the lowest date of the beginning of his Cesarean imprisonment by that of the outbreaking of the Neronian persecution at Rome, a.D. 64, which (Acts xxviil. 30) must have been at least two years after Paul’s first reaching Rome (1 and 2 Thessalonians, having been written when Silas was with him—1 Thess. 1.1; 2 Thess. i. 1—before the close of his first labour at Corinth, are of date as early as A.D. 53-54, the earliest known date of any New Testament Scripture; after which the four Epistles are of earliest known date). 2. As to the later Pauline Epistles——Those having Paul’s name—seven—form two groups.—(1) The “prison” Epistles to the Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. It is barely possible, though very unlikely, that Philippians should have been written at the time of the Cesarean im- prisonment of Paul (Acts xxiv. 27), av. 60-62. It is certain that Ephesians (Eph. iii. 1, iv. 1, vi. 20), its duplicate 1 For convenience of reference we employ the commonly received chronology as framework. Our interest in dates is only relative, within any frame. 204 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Colossians (iv. 10), and Philemon (Phil. 24), all date from the toman imprisonment, before the time (1 Pet. v. 13) of Peter’s going (if he ever went) to Rome, and after Paul’s first reaching it, A.D. 62. All three went to Asia Minor at one time, to places not far apart. Mark (Phil. 24; Col. iv. 10) may (1 Pet. v.13) then have been on his way to Babylon, internuncial between the two prince apostles. Peter,? after now eagerly reading Lphesians (cp. 2 Pet. ili. 15, 16), would thereupon write 1 Peter, which is essentially a Petrine Ephesians—the same in substance with Paul’s Epistle, in structural foundation and progressive articulation, doctrinally and practically, with peculiarities unique in Scripture, alike in both all through. Both apostles were in expectation of soon dying (Phil. ii. 17; 2 Pet. i. 15), and in this Pauline 1 Peter and Petrine Ephesians they seek to establish the Anatolian Christians (Eph. vi. 10-20; cp. Acts xx. 28-30; LavPet. wy. LO; #12 3 bake? xxl 32); John oxxignigeecuons In view of an approaching “ fiery trial” (1 Pet. iv. 12-19), the two Epistles are in effect a joint-apostolic manifesto, respectively of the Gentile and of the circumcision apostolates (cp. Gal. i1. 9), setting forth, as their common substance of testimony, the only complete view of Christianity, in its two balanced parts, doctrinal and practical, that is to be found in any one Scripture. (2) The “ pastoral” Epistles—viz. 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—may belong to a period, after a.p. 64 (Acts xxviii. 30), when Paul is no longer in view of Luke’s history. He may not have suffered martyrdom in that year, when for the first time professed Christianity was dealt with by the Roman empire as a capital crime (cp. Acts xviii. 14, 15, xxill. 29), but have been set at liberty as acquitted of the frivolous charges against which he had gone to Rome on his own appeal. Some think that in this way he had a period of liberty (see Tit. ii. 12—how was he to be there if he was in a Roman prison ?), in course of which he may have been permitted to gratify his cherished aspiration (Rom. xv. 24, 28) to visit with the gospel the utmost bounds of the known world in the (westward) line of his great evangelistic move- ment (Rom. xv. 19), namely, Spain; where tradition makes 1 See Acts xv. 37-40, and below, sec. 2. 2 See above, p. 200. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 205 him to have been apprehended, now as a Christian, and taken to a second Roman imprisonment, ending in martyrdon (along with Peter ?—John xxi. 19), perhaps as late as A.D. 67. In any case it is in the Pastoral Epistles that we obtain our last look of Paul the magnanimous. He now has “sons” (1 Tim.i.1; 2 Tim.i. 1; Tit. 1.45 ep. Phil. 10, cp. ver. 9), so to speak, junior colleagues, as Peter has one (1 Pet. v.13). It seems to have been a point of strategy in Paul’s campaigning, when a region had been subdued in its central strength, that he should then (see Rom. xv. 20) push on ever ahead to fresh conquest, leaving “the things which remain ” to be “set in order” by lieutenants formed under this great captain. They are organising superintendents (Tit. i. 5, 7; 1 Tim. iii. 8, etc.) of churches in Crete and (presumably) in the Ephesus district, as (1 Pet. 1. 1; cp. v. 1) churches are built up in various other regions of Asia Minor (where—1 Pet. v. 12—the great Silas may have been “ faithfully ” labouring —see Acts xvi. 6, 7—during the ten years of his disappear- ance from Paul’s company—at 2 Thess. ii. 1). Matters at Rome are hastening to a final crisis (2 Tim. iv. 6-8), to which there is urgency mustering the paladins of this Charlemagne —now much forsaken (2 Tim. iv. 9-11), and (ver. 16) about to be tried (by Leo) a second time for his life. Mark is in Asia Minor again (ver. 11—now on his westward way, once more, from Peter to Paul?), Timothy is to bring him with him to Rome, as well as the cloak left at Troas (the prison is chilly for a worn-out old man, Phil. 9), not forgetting the books he wot of, least of all “the parchments.” Hebrews, not known to have been written by Paul, was, in the second century collections, always associated with his “ thirteen Epistles,’ sometimes placed before them and some- times after. It must have been published very near the time of Paul’s death and Peter’s (Heb. xiii. 23, 24); perhaps a.p. 68, when Jesusalem and its temple were yet standing. It is Pauline in its type of doctrine, but unlike the apostle’s writ- ings in style. It may be said to be Petrine in its finding Christ in the Old Testament, since Peter is the Old Testament apostle. The specialty of it, showing the Old Testament in the New (novuin in vetere latet-—Augustine) makes an end of the jealousy between Jewish and Gentile Christian. It thus 206 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. meetly crowns the arch of apostolic testimony constituted by Ephesians plus 1 Peter. It may have been a joint-work of the two apostles, through Silas and Mark. “The parchments ” may be Peter’s revision of a Hebrews wrought out by Silas on lines prescribed by Paul, who may now be waiting for a final revision of it at his fimis coronat opus. 3. As to the historical Scriptures (New Testament). We begin with Acts. They bear no trace of the writer's being aware of anything—eg. in Paul’s career—later than a.D. 64, though (2 Tim. iv. 6-8, 11; cp. Phil. 24) Luke was with him on to the close of his career, which may have been as late as, say, AD. 67. It may thus be presumed that they were completed before the bursting of the Neronian storm. In the quiet (Acts xxviii. 30) of the two preceding years, A.D. 62-64, when Paul had an easy imprisonment as one appealing to protection of Roman law against a frivolous accusation of Jerusalem Jews, Luke, practising as a physician at Rome while attending on this hero of the faith, could well have digested his twofold history, first (Acts i. 1; cp. Luke 1. 3) of the earthly ministry of Christ, and now (Acts i. 8) of the work of the Holy Ghost in founding the kingdom of Christ risen and ascended. He had joined Paul immediately before the apostle’s first crossing into Europe (Acts xvi. 10, where begin the “we” sections, indicating personal presence of the historian on the occasions thus marked in his narrative). Though not always in personal attendance on Paul after that, he was to the close his faithful associate in life and labour ; and tradition makes him to have been, at the close, his associate in martyrdom. ' With his habit of diligent ascertainment and of exact digesting, Luke may have been collecting and arranging the materials for his Gospel before he first joined Paul (A.D. 52), and he was perhaps an elder at the Jerusalem Synod (A.D, 51). The Cesarean imprisonment of Paul would give this gifted student opportunities of obtaining at first hand—eg. from Mary, from the shepherds, from the family of Zacharias—the information peculiar to his Gospel at chaps. 1, i; and a personal visit to the route of the Lord’s journey from Galilee to the Cross may have occasioned the collection of materials in his xi—xvili, chaps.—a section that is not coincident SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 207 with sections in Matthew and Mark.’ In the course of his attendance on Paul at Rome he met Mark repeatedly (Phil. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11), perhaps frequently, and may have read his notes of Peter's “teachings.” He had abundantly good means of attaining to “ perfect understanding of all things from the very first” (Luke 1. 4), with reference to the apostolic history as well as to the evangelic—(1) With reference to the Pauline movement in the Gentile world, he of course could easily attain to “perfect understanding of all things” from Paul and his associates ; while (2) as to the earlier Petrine move- ment in Palestine, no doubt there were records of the few simple creat matters in the Acts preserved by the original mother- Church at Jerusalem; and, as we have seen, there was close connection with Peter and the original apostolate through such men as Silas, the great Jerusalem “ prophet” of the Synod time, and Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, and the son of Mary, Peter’s early friend (Acts xii. 12). If Theophilus merited the estimation in which Luke held him, he must have seen that these two books were a gift of incalculable value to mankind, strong as mountains, while more precious infinitely than mountains of finest gold.” The two have internal evidence quite conclusive as to unity of authorship ; so that it needed not the daylight clearness of the external evidence in this case to show that the writer of the third . Gospel is the writer of the Acts. Regarding the two other synoptists, there is a testimony of Papias which will fall to be carefully considered by us in our following section. Tradition places the publication of Mark at Rome. That might well be, if Peter went west from Baby- lon some little time before his martyr death, when Mark, his “son,” would naturally accompany him. It appears to be 1 Another “ undesigned coincidence,” like those noted at p. 201 above, is seen at Eph. i. 18, as compared with Luke xxiv. 31, 45. The apostle’s mixed metaphor, of “eyes” and “understanding” is a blend of the “physician’s” descriptions of two openings, one of the eyes and the other of the understanding. It is to be noted also that Paul evidently has Luke’s version of the institution story at 1 Cor. xi. 23, etc. Though Luke’s tospel should not have been completed at the time of Paul’s writing that section, he may have had his materials in readiness thus far, and have conversed with Paul about the subject (¢.g. at Corinth). 2 See below, p. 218. 8 See Renan’s testimony below, p. 210. 208 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. morally certain, were it only from the silence of Luke in Acts XXvlil., and of Paul in his Epistles to and from Rome, that Peter never saw the imperial city, or at least made no long residence there, before the period of Paul’s Roman imprison- ment, A.D. 62-64. But about the time of that imprisonment, Mark, as we saw, was repeatedly at Rome with Paul; and, in concert with Luke or otherwise, he may there have published his Gospel, perhaps about that time. Matthew, according to tradition, remained in Palestine fifteen years after the Lord’s death, and wrote his Gospel to supply his place when he went thence on his foreign mission. It has internal evidence of having been written before the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. xxvii. 8, xxviii. 15), presum- ably not later than A.D. 68, when Palestine was beginning to experience the agitations which led on to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the nation. According to Papias, reporting the testimony of a witness who was a con- temporary of apostles, Matthew’s logia’ were first written in Hebrew(= Aramaic), which every one translated as best he could. These logia may conceivably have been a collection of the Lord’s discourses, the report of which in Matthew’s Gospel is much more copious than the reports of them in the other synoptists. His report of discourses is in considerable -measure on the plan of massing them together according to the nature of subjects, which in places occasions difficulty in “harmonising” him with Mark and Luke reporting in the order of time. It is quite a fair suggestion that Matthew should have originally written his Gospel in Hebrew, and after- wards have seen to its appearing in Greek, which, to a man of his standing in Palestine at that time, might be quite easy. What was said to Papias about every one translating as best he could presumably means, eg. that one preaching in Greek, and using the Semitic Gospel, or otherwise using it in Greek discourse or writing, would give his own rendering of it— until an authorised Greek Matthew came into use. Within this century, Scottish Gaelic preachers, long after an excellent authorised Gaelic version had come into use, might be found having only the English version with them in the pulpit. (A mystification that has been made out of guesswork about 1 See below, p. 214, etc. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND R&ESUMT. 209 the statement made to Papias is not worth clearing away ; what it calls for is not reasoning but censure.) The suggestion of Matthew’s having made a collection of the Lord’s discourses is countenanced by the copiousness of report of discourses in John a generation later. But of separate publication of such discourses there is no trustworthy historical evidence. Lhe historical books of this period are thus all placed A.D. 62-68; excepting Mutthew, which an intrinsically credible tradition places, say, fifteen years earlier. 4, As to the non-Pauline Epistles of the period—1 Peter, the only one of them really important for apologetics, has already been considered by us, as has also 2 Peter,’ which (cp. 2 Thess, and 2 Cor.) may have been a practical postscript to 1 Peter,’ and between it and Jude there may have somehow been giving and taking. The minor Scriptures, archaic in their manner, and leaning much on the earliest. revelations of God’s mind through His dealings with mankind, are interest- ing as samples of what may have been the style, or a style, of apostolic instruction to Hebrew Christians (Jude 1) in the most primeval Christian times of the great Pentecost, The James of the Epistle is understood to have been “the Lord’s brother ” (Gal. ii.), who remained in high position at Jerusalem after the apostles had gone away to “ preach the gospel to every creature ” in “all the world.” He suffered martyrdom at Jeru- salem near the time of Paul’s being sent away from Palestine to a Roman prison, never to see the earthly Jerusalem again. Lhe whole Christian literature of that age thus places itself naturally in the relative Christian history. 2. The particular case. The experienced effect of these four men’s telling one story, each one in his own way, has in all generations been complete satisfaction to those for whom it was intended to provide (John xx. 3; 1 John i. 3). It has completely met their soul’s want as to record of a supernatural revelation of redemption in course of being achieved by the divine Son of man. The community of believers have sometimes appeared as if not t Above, p. 204, ete. ? Above, pp. 105, 136, ete. 5 As to Ephesians and 1 Peter, see above, p. 204, 14 210 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. unwilling to change the number of the articles of faith, if not even of the Commandments. They have never shown any disposition to cavil at four as the number of the Gospels. And if there are to be four of them, probably there is no benevo- lent rational creature that would think of putting any other book ever seen or heard of in the place of Mark. The greatest infidel of recent times speaks of this Gospel as follows :— “The details in fact possess in St. Mark a definiteness which we seek in vain in the other evangelists... . He is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond doubt, from an eye- witness. There is nothing to conflict with the supposition that the eye-witness, who had evidently followed Jesus, who had loved Him and watched Him in close intimacy, and who had preserved a close image of Him, was the Apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.” (The italics are ours.) Renan here answers his own innuendo about “ chaos,” as characterising the gospel-account of the actions of Jesus, in comparison with the perfect accuracy of Matthew’s report of discourses. Now Mark’s Gospel characteristically has no report of discourses. Substantially, it has nothing in it but the action of the Lord and others—ineluding some speech as part of action. And here that same critic labours, as if to exhaustion of his powers of “ brilliant ” rhetoric, in enlogy of Mark’s admirably exact reproduction of that varied activity to the life, in its minutest features, as the whole might have been seen by the closest and clearest of all observers, a living, trusting heart—even Peter’s ! Now, if Mark’s narrative be thus exact, what real question of fact affecting the truth of religion remains with reference to Matthew, Luke, John? The only such question is that of the supernatural, and the supernatural is not less vividly manifest in Mark’s Gospel than it is in the other Gospels. Here, then, relatively to the real question of religion, there confessedly is an authentic history of the earthly ministry of Christ. Con- sequently, “learned unbelief,’ in the person of one of its foremost masters, has abandoned the main central ground of the learned unbelief of those other masters whose names but yesterday were filling the world,—the ground, namely, that the history must be held mythical, the books must be held ee. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 211 forgeries, because the narrative is supernaturalistic. Not So, says the learned infidelity of to-day, through him whose name it is that now fills the world; but, on the contrary, though Mark’s narrative is supernaturalistic, nevertheless the book is genuine, and the history is a singularly exact reproduction of what was seen and heard by Simon Peter, and what he went about the world declaring. Neither Peter nor John claims any- thing more for his narrative than this concedes, namely, that the narrative is a correct description of what he has seen and heard (1 John i. 1-3; 2 Pet.i. 16-18). And the concession _ with reference to Mark is abandonment of that main central ground of unbelief with reference to Matthew, Luke, and John. Regarding Matthew, Renan says, “St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the discourses,” and goes on to say in effect, as we noted, that the discourses in Matthew have internal evidence of being the very words of Christ. If that be so, if in Matthew we have his words in self-evidently trustworthy form, while in Mark his actions are vividly distinct as in instantaneous photography, then what more could we have in the way of authentic history of the first founding of this religion and its founder? Although there had been a thousand other gospels, of John or any one else, what would all that be but bringing in a thousand other suns where already there is noonday light ? Finally, the same authority says as to Luke: “We think, therefore, that the author of the third Gospel and of Acts is in all reality Luke, the disciple of Paul.’ Yet Professor Huxley (A.D. 1890), from the platform of a general periodical, addressing readers who were dependent on his testimony regard- ing fact, alleged as a fact, in excuse of men for not believing on Christ, that 7 the judgment of the scholars who represent the most recent attainments in biblical study, we have no real means of knowing for certain what was the teaching of Christ (cp. Luke i. 4; John xx. 31)! At present we are at a distance from the fourth Gospel reporting, “ He ”—the spirit of truth—~“ shall convince the world of sin . . . of sin, because they believe not on me.” But we dwell for a moment on the sentence, “If such things be done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?” Zhat—according to Renan—was in the teaching of Christ according to a contemporary, a man 2412 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. of science, who loved truth more than his life, and, who, making careful inquiry about everything, reported only what came from those “ who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” It was said (Luke xxiii. 31) by Christ as declaring the inevitableness of divine judgment upon men because of the rejection of Him. Parias oN Mark.—lIn here pausing to dwell on the par- ticular case of the second Gospel, we put ourselves in the way of giving a due place to a morsel of special information regard- ing it that happens to have floated down on the long stream of time. But we are also in a reasonable way of attaining to some further distinct impression of the significance of the fact represented by the trustworthiness of any one of the Gospels, —a fact whose ascertainable reality is a great privilege, in- volving corresponding greatness of responsibility, for every man alive on earth. In looking back on what we have been engaged in consider- ing, we are reminded of a saying as to the Douglas family in the Scottish Middle Ages, that in the nation’s history there never had been a time when that family was not great. In the history of New Testament Scripture there never was a time when the Gospels—in number always four—vwere not in the foremost rank and place of greatness. Mark’s Gospel, being virtually Peter’s,| may have been composed, as tradition makes it to have been, before the apostle’s death, which pre- sumably was not later than, say, A.D. 67. And as regards the substantive contents of it, though Mark (1 Pet. v.13; Acts xii. 12) was a younger man than the apostles, yet his Gospel is a generation older than John’s Gospel. It may have been the earliest written of all the four; and at least the collecting of its materials was earlier than the writing of Peter’s Epistles (2 Pet. i, 15), and of the prison Epistles and Pastoral Epistles of Paul, along with Hebrews. It bears no obvious trace of being in any way indebted, as some of those Epistles are, to previously existing New Testament Scriptures. If the Synoptical Gospels, as compared with Johannine sublimity, represent especially the homeliness of divine presence among us in the flesh of Christ (John 1. 1, 14), the homeliest 1 See below, p. 219. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 213 of the three is Mark. Matthew is a thoroughly constitu- tional Hebrew of the high Old Testament national type (Ex, xix. 6), with whom it is a necessity of nature new and true to see to it that all things now proceed according to prescription of the law and the prophets (Matt. xxviii. 20; cp. v. 17-20), and who thus has written what Renan reckons perhaps the most important book in human literature. Luke has Gentile culture in a fine strong Hellenistic mind, which natively fits him for being God’s man-pen in writing what from ancient times has been regarded as the distinctively Pauline Evangel to the peoples (cp. Acts ix. 15; Eph. iii. 8). The author of the fourth Gospel, whom Augustine described as an eagle gazing at the sun (cp. Rev. i. 5, 6), is a Christian Plato of the school of the Old Testament, with soul on fire of a new baptism “from above,” whose Gospel is a firmament containing all star-light of prophecy, while also it is a new sun’s light and atmosphere of heavenliness, em- bracing lowly things of earth and time in one whole with all infinity and all eternity. Mark is simply human, as a fisher- man (Mark i. 17) or (John xxi, 15-17) as a shepherd; but with a humanity now redeemed from common-place (Acts x.) by being called out of darkness into marvellous light (1 Pet. ii. 9). This may well be Petros, with his native vastness of a massive strength (John i. 42) now transformed (Matt. xvi. 18) into a vast energetic force for “strengthening the brethren ” (Luke xxii. 32), Papias, too, our special witness here and now, is simple. Eusebius reckons him a simpleton, if not even silly (he differed from Eusebius about the millennium, and Eusebius is a potent Church historian and flourishing imperial court divine). But what we now need is, simply a witness as to matter of fact in our question. And in such a case the per- fection of a witness may be a child, whose candid or white-souled simplicity“ beautiful to God” ?—mirror-like simply reflecting the fact as it was, may make him a Magnus Apollo to seekers after simply truth (cp. 1 John i. 3; 2 Pet. i116). And Papias has the great advantage over Eusebius of having been present at the time and place he speaks of (say, at Hierapolis, A.D. 125), while the Church 1 Greek for rock-man. 2 The Greek at Acts vii. 30. 214 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. historian, two centuries later, knows about the present matter only through the testimony of simple Papias.’ At one place Papias is seen working at “expositions,” based on what he calls Logia Kuriaka. Logia* is from logos (“ reason,” “word,” “discourse,” “account ’”—which may be narrative). At 1 Pet. iv. 11; Rom. iii. 3; Acts vii. 38; Heb. v.12, itis rendered “oracles,”—with reference to Old Testament Scripture, —as a divine record of the things of God. And Kuriaka* means (in some way) “ pertaining to,” or “of,” the Lord. Some would make the logia kuriaka of Papias to mean, a collection of the Lord’s “ oracles” in the sense of His discourses. But no such collection for public use is known to have existed. And there is nothing in the known use of the expression to forbid the obvious suggestion, that these Jogia, the basis of Papian “expositions,’ were gospel records, such as the “ Scriptures” to which Polycarp, and other “elder”? contem- poraries of Papias so carefully (teste Irenzeus) conformed in their utterances regarding what they had heard from the lips of apostles. The name of “oracles” might well be given to these if they were held as divinely inspired, though historical. (At Rom. ili. 3, the “oracles” referred to are presumably historical as well as prophetic and liturgical). And as for the existence of records concerning the earthly ministry of Christ —records “ pertaining to” the Lord—did not Basilides (circa A.D. 120), a heretical contemporary of Papias, write twenty- four books on the gospel, while he and his somewhat later contemporary Valentinus (circa A.D. 140) made use of the Gospels, particularly John,t as Marcion about the same date ° made memorable misuse of Zuke and the Pauline Epistles ? That discussion, however, is somewhat wide of the special interest we at our special point have in this fragment of Papias. Our present special interest in the fragment lies in the picture it presents of Papias himself, as expounding a Scripture that is in some way connected with the earthly ainistry of Christ. And, he says, when he desires more light on a point, he does not, as the manner of some is, rely upon what others * Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iii. 39. 2 See above, p. 208. 8 Plur. adj. 4 Salmon, Books of the New Testament. 5 See above, p. 129. ee ee ae a SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 215 have written about the matter (perhaps, terribly clever heretics who can write more than twenty books about it?). He con- sults the memory of those who have been “ followers” (personal disciples) of “the elders.” What did “the elders” say about this point ?—eg. Peter or Philip, etc.? For, he explains, he preferentially seeks helping light, not so much from what men have written as from the living voice. Here, then, on the Church’s part in this relation, we perceive no day- dreaming or wool-gathering imaginativeness with reference to a mythical Christ, but a clear-eyed vigilance in historical inguiry, making use of the best means of exact verification or expiscation of particulars, on the basis of a primeval record, with help of the fresh, living memory of men of the primeval perrod. That, so near the gate of entrance into the second century from the first, is very important with reference to the New Testament Scriptures generally, as again bringing into view what we observed in connection with Polycarp’s case, a reverence for new Scripture such as is due to “oracular” writings. And with reference to our present special question, of the origin of gospels, we now specially note the fact that “the elders,’ whom Papias goes on to name by way of sample illustration of his meaning, are almost all orzginal apostles (cp. 1 Pet. v. 1; 2 John i.; 3 John 1). We heard Ireneus! describe as “the elders” those who were of the generation before his own. Papias gives the title to those who were of the generation before his own. ‘That is to say, while the “elders” of Irenzeus are contemporaries of Papias, the Papian “elders” are original apostles and others preceding his time. This perhaps is incidental proof of the high antiquity of Papias himself; since the original apostles he names—e.g. Peter, ob. say, A.D. 67—are, as a class, pre- sumably of a generation preceding the last quarter of the first century. But the point for us is the plain fact here appear- ing, that he is in the habit, with reference to gospel history, of comparing notes with now living acquaintances who personally heard the testimonies of those apostles, “ who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and memsters of the word.” 1 See above, p. 149. 216 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Note on “the presbyter” John—Two centuries after this, Eusebius will see here a presbyter! John in addition to John the apostle (cp. 2 John i.; 3 John i.). After which, the addi- tional presbyter will grow into a mysteriously great personage, presenting features of resemblance—which perhaps may be a famuy likeness—to the Central African Prester John of medigeval imagination. And now, the eidolon is by some being put an place of the apostle—eg. as author of The Apocalypse. Eusebius saw proof of his reality in that there at one time was at Ephesus the tomb of a presbyter John, who was not the apostle. But though there had been fifty of them, it would not follow that one of these is the presbyter John whom Papias has in his second group along with Aristion. The words of Papias here are our only source of real information about the matter. It was his construction of them that caused Eusebius to see “confirmation strong as holy writ” on the tombstone some one had seen at Ephesus with an irrelevant inscription. Papias, without being silly, may not have in every sentence been a model of exact precision in expression. In fact bis expression here is genuinely ambiguous; so that masterly critics are at interminable war about the meaning of it, as labouring “to divide a hair ’twixt north and north-east side.” The expression does appear to have in that second group of two an elder John additional to the John in the first group of seven “elders,” all apparently apostles. But it may be under- stood consistently with the supposition that Papias is speaking about one person in two relations—as being an apostle, and as being in some special way connected with Aristion. It is not a matter about which Papias could well be mistaken. But he might speak confusedly in a gossiping reminiscence, which is not a census return of individuals, and which might be per- fectly intelligible to the contemporaries for whom he was writing. For us, the essential matter of fact is, his personal wntercourse with acquaintances of apostles. There stand firm here to us the important following facts:—(1) Within, say, thirty years of the apostolic age, at Hierapolis in Asia Minor—the region of the Apostle John’s later career—a Christian community are quietly settled, receiving “expositions” connected with gospel history. (2) This is on the basis of @ Seriptwre somehow of biography of Christ, that is “expounded” by the Christian minister of said community (some time before the statement of Justin at Rome, that apostolic “memoirs” of Christ, called “ Evangels,” ? Greek for elder. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 91% are habitually used by Christians in their stated public worship). (3) The said minister, himself supposed to have been personally a “follower” of the Apostle John, habitually compares notes about doubtful points with acquaintances who were personally acquainted with original apostles, some of whom—eg. Peter—died a generation before John. Let any one try to imagine a forged New Testament, or a Sorged quartette of Gospels, or a forged Mark or 1 Peter, as Soisting rtself on that community: to say nothing of the vile fraud originating in conspiracy of such a community and its leaders, and through the medium of it spreading into general acceptance over all the Christian world, like a (welcomed !) Egyptian plague of frogs! If only men who can read and write were to consider (Isa. i. 3; cp. the call on men of sense for “criticism,” 1 Cor. x. 15), then the free and easy talking about “forgery” of Gospels or Scriptures would be left over to those who can only talk. This, however, is only the beginning of the service that is done to us by “simple” Papias in the way of helping toward real perception of the manner in which a genuine Scripture might originate. Within the framework he has given us, we will now consider a picture which he furnishes for setting there, of what might be described as— THE GENESIS OF A GospeL— About Matthew’s Gospel! he says that it was written in Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic), which every one translated as best he could (ze every one who wanted to use it otherwise than in the “Hebrew”). These logia of Matthew may conceivably have been a collection of the Lord’s discourses, which came to be incorporated in Matthew’s Gospel. But there is, we repeat, no historical trace of any such collection having gone abroad apart from the Gospel; and there is an intrinsic improbability of it; as (Acts ii. 22, x. 38, and Mark passim) it was the mighty works of Jesus that constituted the especial matter of apostolic testimony regarding the great ministry; and we remember” that the miracles in particular, not the discourses, were the subject of the Polycarpian reminiscences of the personal instructions of those who had seen Christ. But what now specially affects * See above, p. 208. ? See above, p. 150. 21:3 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. us is the statement of Papias regarding Mark. On the authority of “the elder” (which ?) he states what we will put into our own words, to the best of our judgment, as to his meaning where there is disagreement regarding it among scholars :— Testimony regarding Mark’s Gospel.—Peter, in his “teach- ings” regarding the great ministry, did not rigorously adhere to a fixed order of representation, but gave out the matter variously, according to variety in circumstances of audience. Mark was his “interpreter” (cp. “ travelling secretary,” and see 1 Pet. v. 13). It was his custom to take down in writing what Peter spoke (at the time of speaking or afterwards ?—the expression here about “memory ” is ambiguous). His Gospel was formed entirely from the teachings thus preserved by him (cp. Luke i. 2, and see as to the bearing of nsprration on this). And in the composition of it he did not tie himself to rule of systematic history, but strictly adhered to the rule of simply giving what Peter had delivered, no more and no less. In the actual Gospel “according to” Mark (title not given by him), there is very little record of discourses by the Lord. In its record of action there is no appearance of a “chaos,” but a clear distinctness that is eulogised by Renan.” There is a natural order of events, as there would be in a Peter’s account of the great ministry, with perhaps, in places,—at the beginning and at the close,—an apparent absence of the free natural flow of oral narrative, as if here an editor’s hand were at work, for prevention of a veritable “gap” or “ break” (no doubt employing apostolic material for his work). Of great interest for us is the aspect presented by The concluding section, Mark xvi. 9—12.—This passage, though clear and distinct as an outline, is clearly elliptical. It has a look of not having been finished into flowing nar- rative form. And 72 is known to have been wanting in some ancient copies of the Gospel. Whence arises a question which here gives us pause :— Note on the relative question ——It has been suggested that one or more copies may have gone abroad when the work was finished by Mark only up to the close of ver. 8. To which it seems a futile objection, that they mzght nevertheless have 1 See above, pp. 99, etc. 2 See above, p. 210. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 219 been completed afterwards—they might not. Or the defective copies may themselves have been copied from a MS. from which—as from the Codex Vaticanus—the last (outside) leaf has been lost through accident or tear and wear. And as to want of finish in their form, Mark was not competing for a prize in rounded composition. For the real purpose of his Gospel (J ohn xx. 31; Luke i. 4) a free flowing narrative in the work as a whole was desirable ; and it was indispensable for the special purpose of Mark,—his purpose to render Peter’s own story as nearly as practicable in Peter's own manner. The connecting passages, for maintaining continuity, might be in a different manner; the frame of a picture is not finished in the same style as the picture is. It might even be desirable to put these passages in a different rhetorical form from the stream of Peter's own reported narration, so as not to bring Mark’s editorial contributions— (from apostolic materials)—into competition with Peter’s main “teachings.” On this view, the Gospel “according to” Mark is really Peter's apostolic testimony regarding the earthly ministry of Christ, in a digest-report by Mark; or Peter’s oral Gospel, as put by Mark into the form of a Scripture for perpetuation (cp. Rev. xxi. 14). The view is in nothing discredited by the appearance in chap. xvi. 9-12 of a word or phrase that seems avoided in the Gospel as a whole. In the Gospel as a whole, it is Peter’s words that we read: here, it is Mark’s. Besides, a man’s notes of materials for a work, not yet into a rounded finality of form, may contain words or phrases which he will deliberately keep out of the finished composi- tion; while the section xvi. 9-20 is on the face of it not finished composition, but notes of material for that part of the work. Though unfinished in form, it is in substance a suitable completion of the whole work, loudly called for after verse 8. The appearance of hurried incompleteness at the close of this narrative has a suggestion of tragically pathetic interest, rising toward heroic, in the light of historical connection." According to one of two relative traditions, Peter, when consulted about this Gospel, which Mark was making out of his teachings, intimated approval of the purpose, in accord- ance with a revelation he had received. But the other tradition makes him to have neither approved nor dis- approved, but left the matter to Mark himself. Why should 1 As to which, see above, sec. 1 of this Essay. 220 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. he be sponsor for another man’s book, any more than Paul was for Luke’s histories? Mark, who (like Timothy and Titus) was the “son” of a prince apostle, was as good a name for an evangelist as Luke, who was only an apostle’s “physician” companion. But here the tragically pathetic interest, rising toward heroic, of that incompleteness in form, | breaks in upon our view. One tradition makes the original publication of the Gospel to have been in Egypt, while another places it at Rome, ascribing it to a request of the Roman Christians to Mark. Thus we seem to dimly see Peter, with his “son,” on west- ward way from the historical Babylon, past the Egyptian, to the mystical, not a Roman bishopric for him, but (Rev. xvii. 3-6) the battlefield where the martyr’s crown awaits (2 Pet. i. 14) him. He and Paul, widely separated in outward courses of the one apostolic mission, will thus be united in the closing of it; as the Tigris and the Euphrates, after widely parting on the way from their cradle at Ararat, go down at last as one river to the sea. It was near the time (A.D. 64) of the outbreaking at Rome of the first of the “great” persecutions, a storm of which this fisherman-shepherd may have discerned the signs (1 Pet. iv. 12-19). If it was thus unitedly that the two prince apostles were to “glorify God” (John xxi. 19) by the manner of their death, so com- pleting their common testimony,s by sealing it with blood, we may dimly divine what must have been the condition of mind among the “followers,” at the time when those two masters were being taken from their head (2 Kings ii. 5). And it is moving to think that the incompleteness in form at Mark xvi. 9-20 is perhaps monumental of a sudden alarm of that war-time, or of the continuance of dispeace (Zech. xiii. 7), with alarms preventing quiet work of careful composition. Upon that view the blemish in outward form is an adornment, like the scar of a soldier’s wound upon his breast (2 Tim. i. 3), a “mark of Christ” (Gal. vi. 6)—a brand that ennobles, as when it is said of a soldier good and true— “Each dint upon his battered shield Was token of a foughten field.” * See as to Ephesians = 1 Peter, above, p. 204. SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. ya APPENDIX regarding Mark personally. Papias mentions that Mark had not been a “follower” (personal disciple) of the Lord; which, perhaps, is consistent with the view that he was the young man at Mark xiv. 50-52. Preparatory in providence for his later connection with Peter and the new kingdom, he had been early connected by family with the Jerusalem (Pentecostal) Church, in the hospitable house of his mother, Peter’s friend (Acts xii. 12); and in connection with his once affluent uncle (Col. iv. 10) Barnabas of Cyprus, he had been drawn (Acts xiil. 5) into the original Pauline movement for the extension of the kingdom among the Gentiles. After his dismissal by Paul (Acts xv. 35-37), a soldier who would not go campaigning with untempered steel at his side (2 Tim. li. 9), he enjoyed, as close companion of Peter in his “teachings,” the best possible opportunity of coming to have “perfect understanding of all things from the very first” (Luke i. 3), “even (ver. 2) as they delivered them, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” To Peter the service of such a junior associate might be of ereat value, eg., through his good education and admirable literary gifts (appearing in this Gospel); and perhaps even, through business or other connections of the Barnabas-Mary family with Jews, then very numerous in the Euphrates regions, which (see Acts iil, 9-11) may have been the central field of apostolic labours of the Twelve after the Jerusalem Synod. At the close, he appears in restored personal confi- dence of Paul, perhaps intermuncial between the two chiefs of apostolate '—respectively in the (Japhetic) Roman empire of the west, and in the (Semitic) Parthian empire of the east (cp. Gal. ii. 9). Thus .we see him (1) at Rome (Phil. 24), (2) thence going east (Col. iv. 10), presumably (3) to Babylon (1 Pet. v. 13) :—perhaps with a precious gift of Epistles (2 Pet. iii. 15, 16), and—who knows ?—most important “ parchments ” (2 Tim. iv. 13), containing a draft Hebrews, which (1 Pet. v. 12) will be wrought out on Paul’s lines by faithful Silas, when Peter has made what suggestions are given to him for this coronation joint-work of novum wnstrumentum in vetere latet. Finally (4), he is going west at Ephesus (2 Tim. iv. 11), when (vers. 6-8) Paul is near his death, and Timothy is urged to hasten to Rome, bringing Mark along with him, and above all things not forgetting “the parchments” (as for “the books,” there may be other copies of them to be had). 1 See preceding sec. 1. 222 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. At Rome (Phil. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 11) he will meet Luke again. Perhaps they often met there, and compared notes about their two forthcoming Gospels, respectively Pauline and Petrine. Luke thus would learn about the groundwork of apostolic testimony, and might thankfully incorporate into his evangel any suitable material in Mark’s notes (Luke i. 2). If we are to believe the “elder” who told Papias, Mark will have only Peter's materials, and that we can see in his book. Here we have only been conjecturing what might be—an exercise which in cases may be profitable. 3. Inward character of the Gospels. In relation to apologetics, resting on external or producible evidence, the kind of character of the Gospels that now falls to be considered by us as evincing authenticity and genuine- ness, is that which wnpresses itself on the common mind of readers—like those good works which’ are evidential fruits of faith (see 2 Cor, ii. 3 and John xiii. 35), And it may be a suitable beginning of study of the inward character of the Gospels under that outshining aspect of “manifestation ” (John ii. 11; cp. 2 Cor. iii. 18), to consider fully, as a leading sample-case in point— 1. The Petrine character of Mark’s Gospel.—Is the type of mind appearing in the authorship of this Gospel expressive of the character which otherwise is known to have been in Peter, so as to accredit the view that the narrative is really Peter’s, reproduced here by Mark ? A notable character of this Gospel is, brevity along with a copious fulness, as of a rapid mountain-river in full flood. And this is in keeping with a conspicuous Petrine character, of a forceful individuality in impetuous fervour, which brought this man always to the front of action. Corre- sponding to that character is brevity in utterance: in “the bold speech that breaks without a pause,” the short and simple downrightness of one who “ will a sound unvarnished tale deliver.” So in the ancient Church it was said that (sailor) Peter’s characteristic utterance is “a shout,” as of a skilful, strong sea-captain giving orders in a storm. That may have partly been a result of his education, not in schools of copiously mellifluous rhetoric, but in a rugged tuition of SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 223 realities of man’s common lot in life, eg. on the narrow and gusty Galilean sea. But more manifestly it resulted from his natural character, of impetuous fervour in a_ forceful individuality—which never left him, so that, in the last words of his that remain to us, still “his speech bewrayeth him :”—e,g. in that wonderful utterance at 1 Pet. i. 8, where in a short sentence, as in one cry of a strong soul deeply moved, there is poured out a whole apocalypse of adoring wonder, love, and praise. Peter (Matt. xiv. 72) is the very embodiment of great sensitiveness In a strong nature; a sensitiveness which, ever- memorably appearing both in his sinning and in his repenting, draws to him the heart of all sinful, sorrowing mankind; and which forms in him a basis of qualification, to be not only a fisherman apostle (Mark i. 17), but (John xxi. 15-17) “the shepherd apostle,”—like that “chief shepherd” (1 Pet. v. 4, ep. il. 25), who is able to succour them that are tempted as having Himself suffered being tempted. That sensitiveness in a strong nature results in vivid perception of what comes home to the man, and in a living, clear, and distinct impression of what he so perceives. Further—in accordance with the scholastic saying that “retention is in the measure of intention ”—it is rewarded, or punished (as the case may be), by ineffaceable vividness of remembrance of what comes into his personal knowledge. Thus,— Vivid recollection is conspicuous even in Peter’s old age, when (1 Pet. v. 1) he writes “as a witness” (=spectator) of the sufferings of Christ. For instance, his charge about apology (“answer”—-1 Pet. iii, 14-16) is a reproduction, apparently without any consciousness of reproduction, of what (¢g. cp. Luke xii. 5-12) he no doubt heard on the subject from the lips of Christ a generation ago. And (2 Pet. i. 16-18) if he now looks back to the Lord’s Transfigura- tion, there come to his mind the detailed circumstances of the great event, as if the whole had taken place this morning, and he were this hour come down from “the holy mount” of its occurrence. Thus (cp. Mark ix. 5) the very word “tabernacle,” now comes back (2 Pet. i. 14, 15) into iteration and reiteration, as if it had never left his memory during thirty years. And here (ver. 15) is that word exodus, 224 ‘THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. for “decease,” which in this sense is employed nowhere else in the New Testament except (Luke ix. 32) in a narrative of the Lord’s Transfiguration. The vividness of apprehension which thus results in a clear and distinct recollection even of details — pre-Raphaelite memory — in Peter’s case appears in a corresponding vividness of repre- sentation. And— ? All this about Peter is but a description of Mark’s Gospel. It is known as the graphic or pictorial Gospel. Renan sees that its descriptions are those of an eye-witness. And as to forceful brevity—-saying much in few words, placing the matter in a picture of few strokes—let us look only at Mark’s opening page (Mark i. 13), in its account of the first action of the Saviour’s ministry, after His consecration at the Jordan baptism. It is a picture of the fateful trial of the lonely Son of man. It places Him in a wilderness-framework of loneliness, a wild solitude, intensified by accompaniment of “the wild beasts.” On the foreground is seen the tempt- ing demon; in the background are ministering angels (all the wild or unearthly creatures in one view!). The narrative is a vividly clear pictorial representation of the mysterious, wonderful, great transaction, all.in one sentence of three or four lines! It has been asked, whether Peter was capable of writing a history (say, with an oar for a pen). He did not try, just as John Bunyan did not. He certainly could write a letter— 1 Peter—which the historian of Israel, Ewald, speaks of as worthy of “this great apostle,’ genuine beyond all doubt whatever, and which has proved to be a true “foundation ” Scripture (Matt. xvi 18; Rev. xxi. 14), not only in the mind of Polycarp! but in that of Christendom. It is he who delivered the two “foundation” testimonies of Christianity (Acts il, x.), in that inaugural exercise of the power of the keys, which took effect in first opening the door of admission to heaven’s kingdom, for the Jew first. and also for the Greek. He thus 1s historically known to us as not only in action the man of Rock, whose vastness of massive strength is now a vast energetic force, but also “ mighty in words.” And the narrative in Mark, with its vividly simple 1 See above, p. 134. _———_— - —- ~ 0 Or SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 22 powerfulness of rhetorical character, is only such as might have been expected from the natural and spiritual character of Peter, “declaring” to mankind “the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. i 16). So he continues ever, in Gospel as well as in Epistle, carrying out the charge to him, “Strengthen the brethren.” 2. The Gospels generally.—trThe peculiar vividness of graphic manner which characterises Mark in particular, may thus, to good apologetic purpose, be contemplated in connection with what is peculiar to Peter,—his characteristic forcefulness of sensitive individuality,—and as evincing the internal coherence, in scriptural representation, of the primeval Christian history with its literature (which is proof of the genuine reality or truthfulness of both). But it is possible to emphasise that character of this one of the Gospels in such a manner as to prevent attention to what is far more important, namely, in all the Gospels, a remarkable distinctness of endiwiduality, which goes deep into the heart of the great question of apologetics. This is, in the evangelic representation, a clear distinctness of wing reality, characterising the view both of the great movement as a whole and of its ocean-like multitudinousness of details. In reading the narratives we are so absorbed in the central Person, and in the vast significance of the whole action that centres in Him, that only on reflection we become aware of the wonderful affluence of living individuality that is distinct in the narratives,—a world’s life all in movement as if in living panorama of the whole. Even the lower world of nature is here in a fulness of clear distinctness, so that, eighteen centuries after, these Gospels will place a learned infidel at home in the Palestine of the writer’s day, as in the day when the Samaritan woman converses with Jesus at Jacob’s well. The human beings here are so natural in their every speech and action, that we do not think of their naturalness, as we do not think of the naturalness of the neighbours whom we daily meet in the street. It is only on reflection that we observe how amazing it is that we should be thus familiar in our acquaintance with them all, in their living, clear distinctness of an ever-varied individu- ality, like the particular leaves of a tree in its early summer movement of a manifested life. The wonder grows as we go 15 226 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. on observing that these individuals are all diving things; not colourless or cold and fixed as leaves might be in a photographic picture, but moving as in the reality of life, with a back- ground of appropriate, while ever-shifting, aspects of the sky, and land, and sea. We have life, even in its by-ways and side- aspects, so that, while the world as a whole is here in the crisis of a great historical action,—a fateful progression hastening to its close, as if the archangel’s voice were about to call the world to the judgment,—in the meantime, distinctly as in the by- play of a Shakespearean tragedy, there comes into view the dead sparrow dropping to the ground, the wild-fowl swooping on the exposed seed, the passing summer cloud on the face of childhood at its play, as well as the wonder, deepening into awe, on the faces of grave elders counting the number of “great fishes” that have come into their net. That unbeliever who saw in Palestine “a fifth Gospel,” placing him at home in these Gospels,—would he have been so much at home in a romance, the fraudulent invention of lying forgers down somewhere in the second century, who presum- ably never saw Palestine, and who certainly never saw that people in their land? Let us pause for a moment on the simple fact,—that the life here appearing, in its unmistakable reality of a solidly clear distinctness, was in the world only once, and that only as for an instant. It is a life all concentrated, as if breathless in suspense (John x. 24; cp. Rom. viii. 19), on one person, who is about to be lifted up, and draw all men to Him, that they may perhaps be crucified with Him, so living unto God. Everything that appears, everywhere, every instant, has a look—though it should be of mockery or of murderous hate—toward that sun whose face is now be- clouded; and a dissolution into veritable chaos is impending. It is the great “hour” of history. The world never saw such another life as that of Jesus. The world’s population never at any other time presented such an aspect as in the period of the gospel history. And almost before this picture of it, as by instantaneous photography, is finished, all that Palestinian life is at once effaced from the map of time, as Homer’s island of the Pheacians disappeared traceless in the sea. An avalanche has swept away the hamlet from this valley, leaving not a vestige of the cottages or gardens. By hy SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 22% the legions of Titus and Vespasian, within a generation of the death of Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem inaugurates the dispersion of the nation, so that from Canaan the old Israelitish life is gone for ever. And here, in the record of that life, there is no chaotic indistinctness, but a distinctness beautiful, clear, unfading, as of an Aphrodite rising immortal from the sea-foam of the waves—What says this about the records ? The human life, that so fills the Gospels in a vividly clear distinctness, can have been so delineated, all unwittingly of such artistic effect, only by men whose own life was lived in that age, and in the atmosphere and light of the realities of the primeval history. It is doubtful whether any Greek scholar now could harness the mule of Homer’s description : the particular things he names having passed out of recogni- tion under the names he gives them. No one who has not tried—as Bekker does in his Charikles and in his Gallws—to form a distinct conception of what entered into the ordinary daily life of a human being in a long past age, can conceive how very little we now really know of that ancient life, even as it was in the full maturity of Greece and Rome. And the statement which has been made regarding the gospel histories, that in them there is more to be seen of the ordinary life of human beings than there is to be seen in all the Greek and Roman classic literature, is another way of saying that the gospel histories are singularly rich contemporary records of the life they so depict. But the Gospels do not allow us to see in them only a crowded picture of natural world’s life, in multitudinous ful- ness of an onward thronging movement as in strong rush of advancing tide. Under their tuition, our appreciation of the picturesque esthetic in the representation is chastened by the all-presence in it of a something not of this world. There comes into view, and almost into palpable visibility of realism, the mystery of human life, all round, from the quintessential sweetness of the goodness of a true life, with what is best in moral excellence and loftiest in high heroic saintliness, down to the lowest deep of utterly sordid, base, despairing villainy. And there so comes into view (“ handle me,” cp. John xx. 28, 228 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. and 1 John i. 1) the mystery of godliness, It is said that Napoleon the Great could not so much as touch the books (’Evangile) without a movement as of softening reverence in his iron soul. He felt “the scriptural style,” of inimitable, authoritative, tender sanctity ; as of an atmosphere of holy, pitying love that is “fearful in praises,’ looking down on what it at once embraces and comprehends in the tragedy of Man.! The recorded words of Jesus exhibit no resemblance to the speech of any apostle. And when we come to these Gospels from the best and holiest of other books on gospel history, we find that we have passed from an outer court, of the best thoughts of good men such as we have known, into a different sphere of sacredness: as when (Ex. xxxiv.) Israel’s nobles went up from the Covenant people’s camp into the manifested presence of their God. _Here—2in these Evangels—we are in a sanctuary of His dwelling (John i. 1, 14), where, on the way into the invisible Holiest, there is (John ii. 11) visible incense of adoration toward Him who is throned in grace behind the veil, and a consecration of man’s life on which the lamps of God are shining as they look (Rev. i. 12, 13). We are aware of the great sacrifice for the redemption of that life, and of the Redeemer’s all-prevailing intercession for His people; and of the opening of a way of access into glorious erace, Which now is divinely being made divinely free for all. So the Jesus of gospel history is believed on in the world. He is believed on through being shown (John xx. 30, 31) to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, on His way to make all things new, creating a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, And, though His visible presence be withdrawn for a time, yet that atmosphere and light of His presence, most real though invisible, is (John xiv. 22—24) apprehended by those who wait for His appearing, as in the dawning, and even through the night-watches, there is expectation of the sun. Those waiters for the 1 “Tt is throughout as if a superior spirit, more intuitive, more intimately conscious even than the characters themselves, not only of every outward look and act, but of the flux and reflux of the mind in all its subtlest thoughts and feelings, were placing the whole before our view” (Coleridge on Shakespeare). SAMPLE CASE OF MARK, AND RESUME. 229 morning are here in a temple, whose roof is a firmament where the sun has been, and where the sun will be a second time,—-to disappear no more. Such internal evidence will always make the Gospels to be believed where the men to whom they come are “ worthy” (Matt. x. 12-14). And even where there is not that spiritual mind, which (1 Cor. ii. 15) alone is real qualification for the true “higher criticism ” here, the books will always produce, on the minds of men ordinarily honest and intelligent, an impression of straight- forward simplicity of truthfulness far from the profanity of meanly villainous forgery of sacred records. But now we see that the same conclusion is established, independently, on quite a different footing, namely, that of scholarly ascertainment, of literary historical judgment. In both ways—apart from the more general evidences of Chris- tianity—-we are by these Gospels placed as the Jews were on the day of the great Pentecost, face to face with the apostles declaring what they have seen and heard in the earthly ministry of Christ. And beyond that, we have the vast experimental evidence that is constituted by new creation-work from that day onward, in the transtiguration of heathendom into Christendom,—a work in progress now, and that has gone on incessantly for eighteen centuries, in ac- cordance with the purpose of the existence of the Gospels (John xx, 31), “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; and that believing ye might have life in His name.” \e APPENDIX. ————,~—— THE PREVIOUS QUESTION OF SCIENCE REGARD- ING EVOLUTION. (Paper read before the Otago Institute.) THE evolution in question is especially of species in physical nature. It is an interesting circumstance that there is not one clear case of actual evolution of species in the history of nature as known to mankind. That was intimated a few months ago by the late Sir Wyville Thomson, an avowed evolutionist, of Challenger reputation as a naturalist otf highest class, in what I suppose to have been his last inaugural address. It was, of course, admitted by Mr. Huxley, the living apostle of evolutionism, when, with his charming frank- ness, he said that we might have seen a case of actual evolution 7f we had been there—as of course we might, ¢f the evolution was there. And it is implied in the well-known evolutionary postulate, that of this process of nature the result at every time must be supposed to be infinitesimally small, so as to be imperceptible to a microscopic onlooker on the spot. The circumstance is impressive in relation to the question of fact, whether there is such a thing as evolution in physical nature. If the evolution was there, why are there no clear traces of it here and now? A vast army—horse, foot, artillery, and baggage—has marched across a green field, and left no trace of the transition; but the turf is unbroken, the primrose upright on the stem, while “ilka blade o’ grass keps its ain drap o’ dew.” Yet other things, even the tiniest, have left their traces clearly legible: the footprint of birds, the trail of earthworms, the mark of rain-drops, the ripple of gentle breezes on fine sands. Surely that army is a phantom host, like that of the avenging Teutons in vision of Erckmann- Chatrian’s crazy German schoolmaster, on their way from Fatherland across the Rhine to reconquest of LElsatz and Lothringen. 931 232 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. Other processes of nature—that is, those really known to us, gravitation, for instance, and ordinary generation—bear witness to their reality every day before our eyes, in actual cases of gravitation and generation countlessly multitudinous, infinitely more numerous than the stars in the firmament or the sands on the seashore. How comes it, then, that this alleged process of nature is fruitless in appearance as a long extinct volcano ? A volcano can become extinct, as gas is turned off at the meter, or a fire burns down in the grate. But what can be meant by exhaustion of a great fundamental process of nature, while nature herself remains in full vigour of productiveness, as shown in her processes of generation and gravitation ? Besides, an extinct voleano leaves traces to all future ages of its activity in the past; although, as compared with the alleged evolution, its action can have been only as one evening watch- fire in a series of great campaigns. The evolution must have extended over the whole history of origination, through all the vast sons, Paleozoic, Mezozoic, and Tertiary, recorded and depicted for our learning in the Geologic Pictorial History of Origination, vols. 1., i, lii., of which the grand finale of our Quaternary with Man is only as the last page with a Finis at the foot. Yet, we are told, it has left no “footprint on the sands of time.” And further, that fundamental process of nature, why should we have vainly to look for it only in the records of the past? Why do we not see it in operation at this hour? Why are there not clear cases now occurring of actual origination of new species? Not only around man throned and crowned as lord of all, but higher than he, and yet higher, and higher still, like the steps of the ladder of angels at Bethel? It is true that we cannot at any moment see the grass growing; but we can see it grown, so that it is to-day in the summer where it was not in the early spring. ' The new species, though they should be long on their way toward completeness, ought, as the result of evolution, to be every day arriving at completeness, coming into manifestation as new and distinct; ranks hitherto unseen ever coming into view on the heels of those which have become visible before, as the ranks of an endless army, in wave after wave, appearing on the crest of origination in the dawning, where the morn of life is jocund, ever new—on the misty mountain top. We might have seen a case, you say, if we had been there. But we are there, on the theatre of the evolu- tionary process of nature—if, indeed, there be any such process, of a nature which is alive in the present as in the past. The previous question, to which our attention is now to be directed, is of what lawyers call the issue in the case: How APPENDIX. 23a are we to bring this matter into shape, for a judgment upon it according to truth? I propose that we should look upon it from the view-point of science, in the strict sense of physical or natural science, constituted by interpretation of physical nature in her facts for ascertainment of her doctrines. It is true that in a general sense, which is a true sense, science includes all reasoned information that is solid, all knowledge that rises above simple apprehension of details into com- prehension of them through relative principle, or, to percep- tion of principle in pervasive domination of details. Regarding a process of nature we may have such information that is not derived from nature,-—as we may obtain some knowledge of watch- work, not only through study of machinery and material, but also from such relatively external sources as the testimony of a competent witness. And if we have such information regarding origin of species, the circumstance of its being extranatural in source need not hinder it from being truly scientific in quality. We shall therefore reserve the right of all real knowledge of the matter to be taken into account in the final judgment of science regarding evolution. But for the present we shall contemplate the matter simply in the hght of natural or physical science, self-restricted to ascertainment of nature’s process from nature herself—in her facts, observed, collected, tested, and digested. The previous question being—How are we to judge the claims of the evolution hypothesis to be received as a theory of the origin of species, I find the answer to be: By forming a “clear and distinct idea” (1) of the fact of the alleged process of nature, (2) of the specific nature of the process, and (3) of its alleged extent in physical nature. (1) Is it alleged as a reality of nature? (2) What precisely is it said to be? (3) How far is it supposed to extend in operation? The Cartesian prescription of “clear and distinct ideas” is important in relation to all questions of physical science ; for it is in clearness that science lives, and by distinctness that she moves, progress- ing through differentiation to victorious ascertainment. And itis peculiarly important in the present case, because in connection with evolution there appears to be a peculiar proclivity toward obscure indistinctness, as if the children of evolutionism had, like Israel in the Red Sea, been all baptized in the cloud. I. Or Fact—ALLEGED PROCESS OF NATURE. Science takes an interest in a hypothesis or doctrine only so far as it alleges a fact of physical nature—nature disclosing its process through its history. Thus her doctrine of gravitation 234 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. is nature’s fact of the apple’s fall comprehended by reason, so that the apple’s fall is for her the doctrine of gravitation appre- hended through sense. Keeping this in view, we obtain deliverance, in relation to the alleged evolutionary process of nature, from entanglement with baseless naturalistic specula- tion on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from super- naturalistic doctrine of creation. 1. Baseless naturalistic speculation about origin is repre- sented by the “spec’s I growed” of clever childish Topsy, and by the day-dream of primeeval Athenians and others, in the clever childhood of peoples, regarding autochthonic origination of their fathers from their soil of fatherland. Such things are humanly interesting, as phases of the pathetic history of human guesses at truth near the deep springs of life. But by science they are disregarded as guess-work, not solidly built up on ground of nature from her facts, but floating in air, on Wings of imagination or fancy; or they are by her regarded with aversion as dangerous to solid ascertainment of truth, all the more hateful if they be plausible, so as to be peculiarly dangerous impostures. Such, in relation to the world as a whole, was the ancient cosmogony, to us represented by the noble poem of Lucretius, whose Rerum Natura is not simply the system of things but their genesis as a system, their systematic origination as a world, of cosmos, “order,’ or mundus, “the beautiful.’ We shall pause for a little in view of that speculation, which has lessons to our present from its past. The method of inductive science, which had hardly begun to dawn upon the ancient masters of speculation, has in our new time come to be almost a second nature of inherited habit through generations of induction as a science and a practice ; so that a petit-mattre in our schools can easily obtain exact and full information about wide regions which were as worlds unknown, not only to the deep and far-penetrative industry of Aristotle’s mighty intellect, but to the incarnate genius of speculation about ideal possibilities, eagle-eyed adventurous, in the imperial reason of Plato the divine. This must be held in view of our minds if we will do justice to the old masters, and enter through sympathetic intelligence into comprehension of their speculation, and place ourselves in right relation of discipleship to their genius ; as Manfred saw “ hoar antiquity ” majestic and lovely in the moonlit world he gazed on from the solitary tower, so that for himn— “The place became religion ; and the heart ran o’er In silent worship of the great of old! Those dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns.” APPENDIX. 236 And yet, moonlight is not daylight. We are the children of a distinctively modern day of science. We must judge, as we shall be judged, according to our lights. And in the new light of our day we perceive that that speculation was not science. To poetry, in her love of beauty and grandeur, it has a fascination in its magnificent unity in vast and varied mul- tiplicity of movement and life. To philosophy it might be welcome as a rainbow ladder of ascending through physica of nature to metaphysica of being. It may even be made sub- servient to theology as a discipline of religion, in her aspira- tion, on wings of soul, “to follow nature up to nature’s God.” For she can distinguish the glorious poetry of a Lucretius from his Epicurean metaphysic, and transfigure his poetry into her psalmody more glorious, apprehending his natura as being also creatura, the physis a ktisis, meet theme of nobler song than his. But it was not the result of solid ascertainment of nature’s doctrine from her facts. Origination was appre- hended as a sort of universal growth — pangenesis — with perhaps an unconscious anima mundi, or non-rational “soul in nature,” as vital principle of the great evolutionary movement. And this gave rise to song—in the strain of— “ From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began ; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man.” But poetry is not science. The hypothesis of universal growth, at the core of the representation, and in pervasive domination of it all, was essentially guess-work, like the “spec’s I growed,” and the day-dream about autochthones. Jonian Anaximander adduced on behalf of it the fact of a spontaneous origination of life from the slime of subsiding seas in swelter- ing primeval heat of the sun. But that fact was a fiction, like the recent fable of Bathybius. It was an afterthought of imagination in support of a speculation really fanciful. In substance and spirit that cosmogony was but a sort of philo- sophical poetry of nature, meetly robed.as poetry even when strenuously reasoned as the Paradise Lost, but not less truly fanciful though in aspect it should be quasi-scientific plain prosaic, like a transcendental muse in Quakeress’ costume. To us it may come in the deeper disguise of a master of modern science in the third century of our new Baconian epoch of Induction. It may call itself a scientific evolu- tionism. And he may regard with scorn such as will not receive his speculation, denouncing them in the spirit of the 256 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. saying, “This people, who know not the law, are cursed.” For there is a phariseeism of science as well as of religion: pro- fessed teachers of the law who make the law of none effect by vain traditions of their coteries ; idolatry of the theatre of system, or of the cave of cloistral isolation, to say nothing of the baser idolatry of the market-place, which can sink into pandering to low cravings of the unreflecting by pungent contradictions or innuendoes against received beliefs. And science, having no passions, may not repay that scorn with scorn. But she will guard herself by remembering that, while there may be a really scientific evolutionism, ostensibly built up on ground of nature from her facts, a viewy specula- tion floating in air is not science but imposture, even though the impostor should be himself a believer— “ Like Katerfelto with his hair on end, At his own wonders wondering.” Corresponding to that ancient cosmogony, there is an ideal construction of nature, nowadays calling itself materialistic philosophy, and really being a hybrid of physics and meta- physics, both misunderstood, which may be set forth as follows :— Weassume, to begin with, one infinite homogeneous substance, inhabited by one force working equally in all directions. And from that we imagine the universe as arising in a manner such as might have been suggested to Kant, if he had not been either a philosopher or a physicist, by his categorical im- perative, “ Act from a maxim fit to become law in a system of universal legislation.” Here the germinal conception is “ fit- ness.” In the government of a rational universe, nothing is “fit” to hang together as a system but morality, and nothing but what is moral is “ fit” to hold an abiding-place in such a system as precept of detail. Let us apply this idea to the wholly different case of origination of a physical universe. The universe will rise into being through a vast process of uncon- scious experimentation, on a principle of what we call “sur- vival of the fittest,” though a clear-eyed philosopher might prefer to say “instatement of the fit.” First, in that laboratory, by all round operation of the one force, all conceivable worlds, every one of them with all conceivable infinitude of variety in details, rise toward inchoate being; but while yet only nascent, not instated in being, like Milton’s half-created lion “pawing to be free,” are flung back into non-existence by friction or strain of “unfitness”; the totality proving “unfit” to hang together as a world, or one or more details in an infinite infinitude of details, proving “unfit” for adjustment into harmony with the whole. At last, by a sort of physical abscissio CO ————————— APPENDIX. ise infiniti, there is attained ‘an evolutionary sabbatism of nature, reposing on completion, in that one world which, both as a whole and throughout all its infinite infinitude of details, has been found “ fit” to stand—on what? And how? And why ? The idealism of this construction is clumsy and coarse as compared with the methodology of Hegelians, Chinese, and other speculative barbarians, who deduce the universe by pro- cess of logic from a characterless Being equal to Nothing. The speculation, thus crude and crass intellectually, is inferior to the Epicurean materialism in respect both of simplicity and of that cynical frankness, of confessed guess-work, which under- hes the Epicurean suggestion of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. The assumption which it has in place of that guess, the one substance with one force, is a purely arbitrary creation of man’s will,—“ shooting,” as Hegel said of a kindred specula- tion, “the universe out of a pistol.’ In fact, the universe is assumed as begun, before we have begun to begin it. And this oddly fatalistic universe, thus originated by man’s will before it begins to originate itself by necessity of physical nature, has in it a fatal incapacity of “marching” either through the origination or to it. For the speculation has no provision for either setting the one force in operation or sustaining it in operation once begun. And it is bewildering to try to think whether the resources of mathematical symbolism can con- ceivably furnish an expression for the infinite infinitude of infinity of chances against the origination, by one force always dispersing itself aimlessly in all conceivable directions, of a universe so thoroughly and essentially definite as ours, with a great system for every star, and a little world in every atom, through all its countlessly multitudinous infinitude of systems of differentiation, precise and harmonious, as if in express manifestation of one sovereign mind, “a manifold wisdom ” pervasive, pervasive “all in the whole, and all-pervasive in every part.” But from the view-point of real science what falls to be said of the speculation is this:—It is not only unscientific but anti-scientific, in matter and spirit, in method and result, from centre to circumference all round. To the real world known to science, its ideal world stands in no relation but that of persistent reciprocal exclusion and repulsion. To real knowledge, it is related only as thesis to decisive antithesis. To a really scientific evolutionism, if such a thing there be, it is only an illustration of contrast. Upon disciplined reason it has no claim, except to be driven away from her bar as an old and oft-exposed impostor. 2. At the opposite extreme, we seek to avoid entanglement with the supernaturalistic doctrine of creation. Some appear 238 THE REVELATION AND THE RECORD. to regard evolution simply as the antithesis of creation. And many are under the impression that the one is of course exclusive of the other. But science knows not any matter of course. She will believe only what she perceives in the nature of the things in question. She therefore disregards any “ strife of tongues” that may arise among zealots of either science or theology. For zeal. may be “not according to knowledge,” nor conformable to the maxim, “He that believeth shall not make haste.” And men may consult their ambition more than their qualification before rushing into a controversy so momentous in its issues, both for true rational science and for true rational theology. Disregarding, then, “vain janglings” of men who perhaps “ know not what they say nor whereof they affirm,” let us look into the nature of the things in this case. It is repre- sented by the expressions, respectively, “process of nature,’ and “will”: evolution is “origination by process of nature,” and crea- tion is “origination by will.” Here, then, there is difference with coincidence and connection. But that does not make a mani- fest necessity of collision. There is difference with coincidence and connection, yet there is no reality of collision, nor indeed possibility of it, in the case of space and time as related to one event, and in the case of colour and sound in relation to one body. And in the clear light of science we can see that there is no real necessity of collision between evolutionism and creationism in their own true natures. On the face of the matter, we see that while creationism with its will has to do only with extranatural, supernatural, rela- tively metaphysical,—on the other hand, evolutionism, as an hypothesis of science, has to do only with the physica of nature and its process. Every thing extranatural is as such outside of the province of physical science as such, beyond her jurisdiction and her ken, her power of right to judge or to think. Assum- ine the substantive reality of nature, she does not further inquire whether that reality reposes on supernatural, or whether it may not be self-existent and eternal, or whether it may not be constituted by a chance assemblage of atoms. To any such question she cannot say either yes or no without so far ceasing to be, as physical science. It would be suicidal on her part to think about anything metaphysical, supernatural, extranatural, even in her dreams. In relation to everything but physical nature, she is bound by her constitution, under penalty of death by “the happy despatch,” to be dumb because deaf and blind, as Babbage’s calculating machine. An evolutionist, it is true, besides being thus far a man of science in profession, may further in practice of thought or speech be a metaphysician—perhaps without knowing it, like ¢ — . - = a APPENDIX. 239 the man who spoke prose. In this capacity he may, beyond inquiring into realities of nature, speculate about the ultimate constitution of the universe. And speculation may land him in the panphysicist doctrine, that physical nature is the only reality ; so that what he sees in the looking-glass is a sub- limated beast ; and that correspondingly it is weak, unscientific unreason to believe, with the Great Father of Modern Science, that most assuredly in the judgment of reason “ this universe frame is” not “without a mind.” (Bacon’s Lissays: “ Of Atheism.”) Or, speculation may root him and ground him in the doctrine, that, while physical nature is real and substantial, there is a supernatural not less real and substantial at each of her poles, both in man at our terrestrial pole of wondering con- templation, and in God at the celestial pole of sovereign guberna- tion and origination; that nature herself is to reason a mute eloquent plea for supernaturalism,— . . j ils 4 7) 2 as ; vt , 4 “ae v 4 * Tiey. TPP ieee cwewP . wrederenll | ok 96 wale 2° SalpifooRyS B Zo, ae - é ‘ J a ‘ij 7 és OY . i if: p . cine , 4 aM & as . ie ats git * 3 ks f j 6 eh + os a \ : . . : ap a hy Sie ees of. es / . ‘ ty A one ; , iy Ow ey A “e+ i ah Porat ; Dos rhe ip. AF ' of " ab fe ie x oi Ve a oat : phir uaa) tp Lit rf opts | q 5 e: 68 per | 6 fe ‘ : Ae ya i ps 5 } b ; PVPS Ob pte : 7 - OS geld iteg mn ory ol ait wilok : 7 9 ead ei P ~~ 4 < co ive : : yy sf ie ¥ J ‘ vc ‘ , " PT Fist o ? a d | at i . ee eT Ne p tinge A SETS ; re 2h phan | ‘ = a fi TUS 1 "2 ce haets ow re _ fot UeeO ADE es . b « "hes 4\"SS 2 rh . ; pe Sa “ Hs ise | “ Re wa rs n ioky Si awd ; , i potash Sisahi ae 2 rr a : aie Mt ; mabe) ; : Ash § {8 Janis yy uber j : od ba bt Ede euirinolt < 328. t i] - INDEX. on Sed Acts of the Apostles, 206. Agassiz, Louis, 255. Agnosticism, 13, 107. Amyraldism, 55. Anselm, 19. Antilegomena, 136, 156. . Apocalypse, genuineness of, 119, 136, 165, 1938. Apocrypha, the, 125, 134. Apologists of second century, 152. Apostles’ Creed, 180. Aquinas, Thomas, 241. Aristides, 128, 154. Aristion, 216, 234. Aristotle, 12, 19, 31, 68, 128. Arnold, Thomas, on mythical theory, 158. Athenagoras, 152. Atomism, 14, Augustine, 19, 128, 133, 171, 188, 205. Bacon, Lord, 12, 19, 65, 66, 68, 239. Baillie, Robert, and the Westminster Assembly, 166. Baptist, John the, 169, 170. Basilides, 130, 214. Baur, F. C., 2, 8, 14,17, 25, 108, 118, 136, 140, 164. Baxter, Richard, 30, 44, 48. Bengel, J. A., 5. Berkeley, Bishop, 86. Blandrata, Georgio, 177. Bossuet, J. B., 118. Brewster, Sir David, 65. Bunyan’s ‘‘Pilgrim’s Progress,” 113, 157. Butler, Bishop, 85, 178, 180. Catrns, Principal, 122. Callimachus, 108. Calvin, John, 20, 58, 71, 165, 180. Canning, 252. Canon of New Testament, 117, 167; Old Testament, 119. Cartesian test of truth, 63, 233. Celsus, 14, 17, 152, 176. Chalcedon Symbol, 93. Chillingworth, William, 67. Christian conception of life, 29. Cicero, 128. . Clement of Alexandria, 125, 148. Clement of Rome, 125, 133, 134, 147, 182. Cocceius, Joannes, 114. Coleridge, S. T., on Shakespeare, 228. Communism, 37. Comte, Auguste, 18, 22, 31, 72. Condillac, E. B. De, 21. Constantinople, Creed of, 111. ‘‘ Contemporary Review,” Huxley in, 4. Cromwell, Oliver, 38. Crusades, 36. Cunningham, Principal William, 67. DANA, Js Diy 251. Dante, Alighieri, 20. Darwin, Charles, 244, 248, 251, 258, 259, 260. Dawson, Sir William, 255. Diocletian persecution, 6, 123, 127, 156. Diognetus, Letter to, 134. Discrepancies, 86 ; samples of, 88. Doddridge, Philip, 30. Déllinger, J. J. I., 117. Duncan, ‘‘ Rabbi,” 96. EBIONITES, 165. ‘¢ Eece Homo,” 176. Epicureans, 14, 32, 75, 237. Epimenides, 108. Essenes, 165. Euripides, 75. Eusebius of Caesarea, 128, 124, 128, 135, 186, 149, 183, 213, 216. Evolution, 7, 231. Ewald, Heinrich, 224. FAIRBAIRN, Principal Patrick, of Glasgow, 67. Faraday, Michael, 65. Florinus, letter of Irenzeus to, 149. GAMBETTA, F., 31. Gibbon, Edward, 64. Gnosticism, 25, 88, 129. 263 264 INDEX. Gospels, why four, 194; compared with one another, 195 ; Synoptics, 159, 196; theory as to origin of synoptical evangel, 199; inward character of, 222. HeEBREws, Epistle to the, 119, 135, 205, 212. Hegel, G. W. F., doctrine of pantheistic naturalism, 8, 5, 7, 14, 143, 174, 237. Hegesippus, 151. Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 67. Hierocles, 156. Higher Criticism, a dream of the, 172. Hippolytus, 130, 195. Hodge, Charles, 44, Homer, 19, 111. Hume, David, 12, 15, 20, 22, 50, 61, 86, 104, 143. Huxley, Professor, 3, 12, 13, 15, 178, 211; on evolution of species, 231, 254, 255, 256. Hypnotism, 7. INFALLIBILITY, papal, 115. Inspiration of Scripture, 79 ; objections to the doctrine, 85; bearing on faith and fear of God, 106. Ireneus, 125, 127, 138, 187, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 182, 192, 198, 214. JERUSALEM Synod, 187, 206, 221. Jesuit missionaries, 8, . Jesuitism, 117. John ‘‘the Presbyter,” 216, John’s Gospel a supplement to Synop- tists, 196. Judaism, 165, 166, Justin Martyr, 45, 47, 51, 62, 77, 109, 137, 143, 147, 152, 153, 154, 169, 193, 195, 216. KANT, Immanuel, 20, 236. Kelvin, Lord, 251. Knox, John, 147, 165, 180. Lreoxy, W. E. H., 33. Leibnitz, G. G., 20, 24, 39, 114, 246. Lightfoot, Bishop, 13, 128, 189, 149, Locke, John, 20, 22. Lucretius, 234. Luther, Martin, 165, 166. MAHAFFY, Professor, 194. Maimbourg on the Reformation, 118. Marcion’s ‘‘Gospel,” 129, 135, 148, 151, 155, 157, 214. Mark, personally, 221. Mark’s Gospel, relation to Peter, 99, 200, 207, 212, 218, 222. Matthew’s Gospel, 208, 213, 217. Maxwell, Professor Clerk, 65. DM iCol, Reva s. Melito of Sardis, 151. Miller, Hugh, 31, 255. Minucius Felix, 154. Miracles, 1; bearing of Paul’s ‘‘un- questionable” Epistles on, 160 ; New Testament words for miracle, 188. Morley, John, on compromise, 9; ** Voltaire and Diderot,” 20. Muratori Fragment, 132, 151, 153, 195. Mythicism, 107. NAPOLEON and the Gospels, 228. Nazarenes, 165. Neoplatonism, 193. Neronian persecution, 203. New Guinea superstitions, 72. New Testament Canon, 117. Newton, Sir Isaac, 19, 242, Newtonian astronomy, 52, 142, 157. Nicene Symbol, 177. Novatianism, 6. OxEN, Laurenz, 250. Old Testament Canon, 119. Origen, 148, 163. Owen, John, 53, 78. PaAJONIsM, 55. Pantenus, 148. Papias, 99, 1380, 131, .147, 154, 155, 175, 176, 181, 183, 195, 207, 208, 210, 212, 213, 216. ‘** Paradise Lost,’’ 42. Pascal, Blaise, 19, 117. Pastoral Epistles, 81, 204, 212. Paterculus, 128. Pattison, S. R. G., on evolution, 254. Paul’s four ‘‘ unquestionable” epistles, 157, 166, 203 ; ‘‘Prison” Epistles, 203, 212; Pastoral Epistles, 81, 204, 212. Pausanias, 70. - Peschito version, 127, 131, 195. Peter and Roman Church, 115. Peter’s Second Epistle genuine, 138. Philo Judeus, 108, 120. Pindar, 19. Plato, 31, 142, 147, 180, 197, 234. Platonism, 7, 63. Pliny, 120. Polycarp, 126, 131, 133, 184, 139, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 181, 182, 184, 193, 195, 214, 224. Pope, the, and interpretation of Scrip- ture, 113 ; infallibility, 115. Positivism, 17. Pothinus, 151, 193. ee —— Se ee ee INDEX. ‘*Prison” Epistles of Paul, 203, 212. Puritanism, 53. QUADRATUS, 128. REID, Thomas, 20, 21. Renan, Ernest, 1, 14, 17, 18, 72, 101, 104, 157, 178, 175, 207, 210, 211, 213, 218,224. Restoration, the, 37. Reuss, Edouard, ia Revolution, first French, 37, 118. Ritualism, 165. Romish claim to Church authority as ground of faith, 53. Rothe, Richard, 80, 92. Rousseau, J. re 74, Row, Prebendary, 87, 89. SALmon, Dr. G., 180, 175, 194, 214. Santhal superstitions, 72. Scottish Confession of Faith, 111. Seneca, 120. Septuagint, 127. **Service of Man, the,” 18. Shakespeare, William, 20, 228. Silas and ‘‘ Hebrews,” 206, 221% Sinaitic Codex, 127. Smith, Professor W. Robertson, 65. Socialism, 31. Socinianism, 67, 68, 165, 177. Socrates, 14, 19, 32, 62, 64, 147, 153, 179,°180,.197- Spain, Paul in, 204. Stanley, Dean, 52. Stoies, 14. 30, 32, 75 Stratsa, Dil eiVe. Dyri4, as, 45 158, 159, 164, 173. Supernatural, Christian evasions of the, 4; samples, 7. Synoptic Gospels, 159, 196. TAcITus, 128. 265 Tait, Professor, 65, 251. Tatian, 128, 152, 194, 195. Taylor, Isaac, 120, 139. Tertullian, 45,'77, 125, 129, 180, 131, 32, 187, 138, 148, 192. Theophilus of Antioch, 130, 152, 193, 239. Tholuck, F. A. G., 33, 53. Thomson, Sir William, 251. Thomson, Sir Wyville, 231, 256. Tischendorf, Baik Cale Tolstoi, Count, 24, Trench, Archbishop, 189. Trent, Council of, 113. Tiibingen School, 3, 20, 97, 15, LAO) 157, 164, Turretine, Francis, 68, 116. UsHER, Archbishop, 58. VALENTINUS, 130, 214. Vaticanism, 117. Vatican Codex, 219. Virchow, R., 256. Volkmar, G., 3. Vulgate, Latin, 131. Wack, Dr., 3, 149. Watts, Professor, 87. Wesley, John, 27. Westcott, Bishop, 132. Westminster Confession, 52, 66, 84, 100, 106, 114, 124. Whateley, Archbishop, Doubts,” 118. White, Dr., of Oxford, 194. Wordsworth, William, 73. ** Historic XENOPHON, 147, 158, 180, 197. AYE Oe as and chair of theology vine, " Ohich, PULGo: MORRISON AND GIEB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. > we ’ Pig Pe ng f At: OY = ae Bs gee Z | yr BS Wr oe ayoaes a3 Lanes . eed] baay OF 2 Mek ; iat eg ke wid 80 i = = ne am knee a an eo adh emai meee FS IR hee, Ve ay ek OPO eM eee tas ee 1 Rap eel Pipher ato EOY 4 natal en [ eur ei tywke J tic Lg) i ir me A wn Cara. | 4 : a ; a Al te, hase ABO Ay v sone ats 4 oe [Ove i at rs. ate beh s: aC (Ca abated, Wi te [Fad ou 5 psd! Sha MOS be 95 Fit v Ae a cre Por puter At ne y capt ie ust: Uamerll Tht 42)) ah, ae ise es BN: ; ie een lov snakebite) ¢ aod | vi Bacaties 4 nl et a aos , Beret ot ; ni oe | . 4 he aa “4 eH of (fists ty ; tie SRY 4 : ‘J ‘fi be ee At a @), w. . | oe eit aioe eee. sete tars SD areas ' ; ; i | TEL aan Torey 1 eke ae act k i ds phone: ux Oa tae eres ‘FT Pe genes ah Ch iad CNR Kheten va . ‘ : 7 . Th Ye OFS fat, a ae ia oa 7. St nab ¥ 2a alte eet at eather ey are rs % ata Ae gir Sok, i (fob eh tae ith an ae insite Crs ered we ef Si Po whetiena j ran } a ona ke: ae ‘Regt KE ys) OIE LGR. CE AG Bafa rae nbrne) nee “ | Fal ae bay.) 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